Unsupervised versus Supervised Identification of Prognostic Factors in Patients with Localized Retroperitoneal Sarcoma: A Data Clustering and Mahalanobis Distance Approach

Figure 1

Distribution of histology (a), size (b), and disease-free interval or DFI (c) among the patients considered in this work, according to Table 2, recoding parameters. In histology (a), group 1 indicates WDLPS and SFT, group 1.5 myxoid LPS, group 2 pleomorphic LPS and fibrosarcoma, group 2.5 LMS and DDLPS, and group 3 MPNST and NOS sarcoma. In size (b), group 1 (<10 cm), group 1.5 (11–15 cm), group 2 (16–20 cm), group 2.5 (20–30 cm), and group 3 (30–45 cm) correspond to different sizes in the largest diameter of the tumor. In DFI (c), group 0 corresponds to never relapsed patients, groups 0.5 stays for patients with a DFI superior to 36 months, group 1 is for a DFI from 24 to 36 months, group 1.5 is for a DFI ranging from 12 to 24 months, group 2 is for a DFI of 6–12 months, group 2.5 is for a DFI inferior to 6 months, and group 3 is for patients with no eradication of the disease (never NED). Notice that (i) liposarcoma and leiomyosarcoma accounted for 75% of all patients, (ii) the variable size was normally distributed, and (iii) the majority of patients treated on the protocol ISG-STS 03.03 were in “no relapse” (0 group), confirming the potential effectiveness of the therapeutic approach.

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