Univ., Diss--Münster (Westfalen), 2005. / Zusfassung in dt. Sprache.

Maligne Weichgewebstumoren des Erwachsenenalters sind mit 1% aller Malignome sehr selten und können grundsätzlich in allen Körperregionen entstehen. Trotz aller Fortschritte in Diagnostik und Therapie besteht unverändert eine schlechte Prognose. Diese ist einerseits in der zum Teil aggressiven Biologie und andererseits durch das Fehlen früher Symptome begründet. In der vorliegenden retrospektiven Studie wurden die Krankenakten von insgesamt 82 Patienten analysiert, die im Zeitraum von 1989 bis 2003 aufgrund eines malignen Weichteilsarkoms in der Chirurgischen Klinik und Poliklinik der Universität Würzburg primär behandelt wurden. Aufgrund der doch deutlich schlechteren Prognose von Patienten mit retroperitonealen Sarkomen im Vergleich zu Patienten mit Sarkomen der Extremität, erfolgte getrennt in diese beiden Hauptgruppen die Analyse der relevanten klinisch-epidemiologischen Parameter sowie die Darstellung der onkologisch relevanten Ergebnisse in Bezug auf Rezidivrate und Überleben nach multimodaler Therapie. Die Gegenüberstellung von Extremitätensarkomen und Sarkomen des Retroperitoneums zeigt deren unterschiedlichen Krankheitsverlauf. Patienten mit Extremitätensarkomen können von einer kombinierten Therapie aus chirurgischer Resektion und Strahlentherapie im Hinblick auf die Lokalrezidivrate profitieren. Ihre Prognose wird bestimmt durch das Auftreten von pulmonalen Metastasen. Patienten mit retroperitonealen Sarkomen können weit weniger häufig strahlentherapeutisch behandelt werden. Zudem führt eine anatomisch bedingte eingeschränkte Resektionsfähigkeit häufiger zum Lokalrezidiv, das dann prognoseentscheidend ist. Die in 2002 neu überarbeitete TNM-Stadieneinteilung der UICC bietet für die retroperitonealen Sarkome keine Verbesserung. Nur Malignitätsgrad und An- bzw. Abwesenheit von Fernmetastasen stehen hier als Kriterien zur Verfügung. Van Dalen formulierte ein Klassifikationssystem, welches die Resektionsradikalität als zusätzliches Kriterium berücksichtigt. Die von ihm definierten Gruppen unterscheiden sich in unserem Patientengut signifikant in ihrem Langzeitüberleben. Wie bereits bei den GIST in exemplarischer Weise verwirklicht, könnten Fortschritte in der Molekularbiologie und Zytogenetik neue Therapieoptionen aufzeigen, welche die nach wie vor schlechte Prognose für Patienten mit Weichteilsarkomen verbessern helfen. / Soft-tissue sarcomas are a relatively rare disease accounting for approximately 1% of adult malignancies. In principle they can occur in all body regions. Despite all the advances in diagnosis and therapy, there is still a poor prognosis. The reasons are an aggressive tumor biology and also the lack of early symptoms. In this retrospective study, we evaluated the medical records of 82 patients who underwent surgery for soft tissue sarcoma in our institution between 1989 and 2003. Patients with retroperitoneal sarcomas have compared to patients with sarcomas of the extremity a significantly worse prognosis. Therefore, we analysed separately the following parameters for these two groups: the relevant clinical and epidemiological data and the presentation of the relevant oncologic results in terms of recurrent disease and survival after multimodal therapy. Our results for sarcoma of the extremity and retroperitoneal sarcoma illustrate their different clinical course. Patients with soft tissue sarcoma of the extremity can benefit from a combined therapy of surgical resection and radiation therapy in view of local recurrence rate. Their prognosis is determined by the occurrence of pulmonary metastases. Patients with retroperitoneal sarcoma can be treated far less with radiation therapy. An anatomically-related limited resectability often leads to local recurrence, which determines the prognosis. The TNM/UICC staging system was revised in 2002. It offers no improvement for retroperitoneal sarcoma. 2004 Van Dalen presented a postsurgical classification system based on grade, completeness of resection, and distant metastasis. We assigned our patients to van Dalen´s classification system. The so-defined groups showed significant difference in their long-term survival. Advances in molecular biology and cytogenetics may provide new therapeutic options, which help to improve the poor prognosis for soft tissue sarcoma patients, already happened with GIST.

No description available.

Objective: Epithelioid sarcoma (ES) presents unique clinical features in comparison to other sarcoma subtypes. Data regarding the benefits of chemotherapy are very limited. Combination regimens using gemcitabine and docetaxel (Gem/Doce) have proven to be effective, especially in uterine and nonuterine leiomyosarcoma. Yet, there is no available data on the efficacy of Gem/Doce in ES. Methods: A retrospective analysis of the three participating institutions was performed. Twenty-eight patients with an ES diagnosis presented at one of the participating institutions between 1989 and 2012. Of this group, 17 patients received chemotherapy. Results: Patients’ median overall survival (OS) after the beginning of palliative chemotherapy was 21 months, and the 1-year OS was 87%. Twelve patients received Gem/Doce with a clinical benefit rate of 83%. The median progression-free survival (PFS) was 8 months for all patients receiving Gem/Doce. The best response was complete remission in 1 patient and partial remission in 6 patients. All 6 patients receiving Gem/Doce as a first-line treatment showed measurable responses with a median PFS of 9 months. Conclusions: In this retrospective study, Gem/Doce was an effective chemotherapeutic regimen for ES. Prospective studies are needed to better assess the effects of this combination drug therapy.

The tumor microenvironment (TME) comprising immune cells and stromal components, such as fibroblasts and vessels, emerged as one of the most significant predictors of patient survival in a variety of solid tumors. With T cells representing the major cellular effector cells of the adaptive immune system and B cells orchestrating the humoral immune response, both cell types acquire crucial roles in the antitumor immune response. Thus, a high abundance of tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells and B cells has been generally associated with longer survival, while immunosuppressive subsets such as regulatory T cells (Treg) and M2-polarized macrophages are frequently linked to poor prognosis. Besides the frequency, also the spatial organization emerged as a clinically relevant parameter. Hence, the formation of T and B cells in tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) was found to favor improved clinical outcome of patients. It was further reported that besides the prognostic value, the baseline immune architecture harbors the ability to predict the response to immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment and even chemotherapy. In turn, standard cytotoxic treatment regimens like radio- and chemotherapy, as well as novel immunotherapeutic or targeted approaches, exhibit distinct effects on various immune cells. Depending on the tumor entity, therapy, and immune cell subsets, differing modulation of infiltrating immune cells after therapy was observed. While previous studies mainly investigated an altered abundance of T and B cells, changes in functional orientation and composition of lymphocyte populations are gaining increasing relevance. In this thesis, the aim was to uncover the phenotype, frequency, composition, spatial distribution, clinical significance, and therapeutic modulation of the T cell compartment in soft tissue sarcoma (STS), and B cell populations in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Due to the low incidence and heterogeneous nature of STS, detailed analyses of distinct CD8+ and CD4+ T cell subsets are lacking. To assess the effect of multimodal treatment, comprising radiotherapy and locoregional hyperthermia with or without chemotherapy, on the immune architecture, the patient cohort included matched pre- and post-therapy tissue samples. By assessing both the peritumoral and intratumoral region, additional information about the spatial distribution of STS-infiltrating T cells was gained. In PDAC, the T cell compartment and its therapeutic modulation has been explored in detail recently, but equivalent insight into the B cell landscape is missing. Going beyond the abundance of pan B cells, the aim was to identify proliferating B and T cells, germinal center (GC) B cells, plasmablasts, and plasma cells to investigate their modulation by neoadjuvant chemo(radio)therapy (NeoTx). Further insight into the spatial composition was gained by analyzing different regions (intratumoral and peritumoral) and tissue compartments (epithelial, stromal, TLS). To achieve this, three novel multiplex immunohistochemistry panels were established enabling simultaneous staining of six markers plus DAPI. For CD4+ T helper (Th) cells, the master transcription factors for Th1 (T-box expressed in T cells), Th2 (GATA-binding protein 3), Th17 (retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor T), and Treg (Forkhead box protein 3) were included in addition to CD3 and the proliferation marker Ki67. The CD8+ T cell panel comprised the phenotypic marker CD8, the immune checkpoint molecules programmed cell death protein 1 and lymphocyte-activation gene 3 as well as the activation-associated molecules granzyme B and 4-1BB, in addition to Ki67. It was thus found that post-treatment STS samples displayed moderately reduced frequencies of both CD8+ and CD3+ T cells in comparison to the pretreatment biopsy. The Th cell landscape was dominated by Th2 cells, whose density was significantly reduced upon multimodal therapy and a moderate redistribution favoring Th1 and Th17 cells was observed. While high frequencies of CD3+ and CD8+ T cells in the posttreatment tissues were associated with significantly longer disease-free survival, these populations held no prognostic value in the biopsy obtained prior to treatment, suggesting a reshaping of the TME upon therapy. Furthermore, the spatial distribution, reflected by the ratio of intra- to peritumoral CD8+ T cells, emerged as an independent prognostic factor for the risk of recurrence. In PDAC, B cell subsets were identified by staining for CD3, CD20, Ki67, the transcription factor B cell lymphoma 6, and the plasma cell markers CD38 and CD138. While CD3+ T cells were unaffected, significantly lower frequencies of proliferating B cells, GC B cells, plasmablasts, and plasma cells were observed in the NeoTx group compared to patients undergoing primary resection (PR). Furthermore, neoadjuvant-treated patients exhibited a significantly lower abundance of TLS, which was validated in an independent cohort. These results indicate that NeoTx differentially affects distinct immune cell subsets, and that B cellmediated antitumor immunity may be inhibited by chemo(radio)therapy. Spatial analysis further revealed that plasma cell accumulations frequently localized close to TLS, being accompanied by C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 12-expressing fibroblasts. Furthermore, patients with TLS exhibited significantly higher plasma cell frequencies, suggesting that TLS can foster the generation of plasma cells whose migration is then guided by fibroblastic tracks. Lastly, a prognostic value of pan T and B cells was observed only in the PR group, while these populations provided no clinical significance in neoadjuvant-treated patients. However, proliferating Ki67+CD20+ B cells emerged as an independent prognostic factor for a lower risk of death in the NeoTx group, suggesting a restorative post-treatment TME in these patients. Altogether, this thesis provided novel insights into the TME of STS and PDAC and its therapeutic alteration. Spatial analyses further enabled an improved understanding of the immune architecture and potential cell-cell interactions within the TME. In addition, strong associations with patient survival highlight the enormous significance of the TME and may guide future therapy development. Although the results do not encourage a concomitant application of cytotoxic therapy regimens and immunotherapy, patients may benefit from sequential combination treatments. An enhanced understanding of the immunomodulatory effects of NeoTx is pivotal for overcoming the immunosuppressive TME of STS and PDAC by refining existing treatment regimens and developing novel therapy approaches in order to improve the long-term outcome of patients.

Objective: Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) and gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) are a group of rare malignant tumours with a high and heterogenous disease burden. As evidence is scarce, we analysed the prevalence of increased emotional distress and identified distress‐associated factors in these patients. - Methods: The PROSa‐study (Burden and medical care of sarcoma) was conducted between 2017 and 2020 in 39 study centres. Cross‐sectional data from adult STS and GIST patients were analysed. Distress was measured with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ‐4). The relation of socioeconomic and clinical factors with distress was explored in adjusted logistic regression models. - Results: Among 897 patients, 17% reported elevated anxiety and 19% reported depression. Unemployed patients (odds ratio [OR] 6.6; 95% CI 2.9–15.0), and those with a disability pension (OR 3.1; 95% CI 1.9–5.0) were more likely to experience distress compared to employed patients. Also, patients with a disability pass had higher odds of increased distress than those without (OR 1.8; 95% CI 1.2–2.7). Lowest distress was observed in patients 2 to <5 years and ≥5 years after diagnosis (comparison: <6 months) (OR 0.4; 95% CI 0.2–0.6) and (0.3; 95% CI 0.2–0.6). Patients with thoracic STS (vs. lower limbs) had twice the odds to experience distress(OR2.0;95%CI 1.1–3.6). Distress was seen almost twice as often in patients with progressive disease (vs. complete remission) (OR 1.7; 95% CI 1.1–2.8). - Conclusion: The prevalence of elevated distress in STS and GIST patients is high. In unemployed patients, in those with a disability pension and in newly diagnosed patients a noticeable increase was observed. Clinicians should be aware of these factors and consider the social aspects of the disease.