An effective preoperative three-dimensional radiotherapy target volume for extremity soft tissue sarcoma and the effect of margin width on local control.

Purpose: There is little information on the appropriate three-dimensional (3D) preoperative radiotherapy (XRT) volume for extremity soft-tissue sarcomas (STS). We retrospectively analyzed the pattern of local failure (LF) to help elucidate optimal field design.

Methods And Materials: We analyzed the 56 patients who underwent computed tomography-planned XRT for Stage I to III extremity STS between June 2000 and December 2006.