Sarcoma of bone following therapeutic irradiation for breast carcinoma.

Four patients with sarcoma arising in bone following therapeutic irradiation for breast carcinoma are presented, along with a review of the 40 patients who have been previously reported in the literature. The majority of these lesions arose in the scapula and the most frequently reported histology is osteosarcoma. The incidence of these lesions has been reported as 0.05% to 0.23% in three previous series. The average latent period between irradiation and the diagnosis of the sarcoma is 10.9 years with a range of 4.5-24 years. The average survival following diagnosis in this series was 2.4 months, which is comparable to other series. However, one patient treated by forequarter amputation and another treated by chemotherapy and radiotherapy survived 4 and 3 years, respectively.