Doxorubicin and beyond: medical therapeutic approaches in the field of metastatic sarcoma

Sarcomas are rare malignant tumours arising from mesenchymal cells. They collect 80 different histological entities. Metastatic cases have poor prognosis, 5 year survival rate is only about 16%, although there are significant differences between histological subtypes. For advanced cases – with a few exceptions – medical therapy is the first choice. The heterogeneity and rarity of mesenchymal tumours makes organisation of clinical trials complicated. So anthracyclines are still the main standard of care for most of the patients since the 70s. Beside them in the last years new alternatives: biological and immunotherapies appeared. In this article we review the current opportunities of sarcoma care according to the international guidelines and our clinical experience.