Metastatic soft tissue sarcomas: A review of treatment and new pharmacotherapies

Soft tissue sarcomas represent a group of heterogeneous mesenchymal tumors that occur rarely in adults. While a variety of histological subtypes exist, some of the most common are leiomyosarcoma and liposarcoma. For eligible patients, standard first-line treatment of metastatic disease has typically comprised anthracycline-containing regimens. While traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy has been the mainstay of treatment in metastatic soft tissue sarcoma, emerging targeted and novel therapies are creating new frontiers of treatment for a variety of histological subtypes. Olaratumab (Lartruvo, Eli Lilly) in combination with doxorubicin represents a new potential first-line treatment option. Second-line therapy is often histology-driven, and novel treatment options include trabectedin (Yondelis, Janssen) and eribulin (Halaven, Eisai). This review discusses the diagnosis, role of chemotherapy in unresectable and metastatic disease, and role of emerging therapies in the treatment of metastatic soft tissue sarcoma.