The number of cancer patients who live longer and are cured of their disease is incereasung.Many of them have recevid radiotherapy as part of ther treatment. postirradion sarcoma(PIS), while still uncommon, is a complication which is appearing more frequently as the number of long-term survivors increases. studies of the clinical characteristies of PIS, such as stage of disease, grade, survival, and prognosis, are there fore of increasing importance, and may lead to different strategies for early detection and preventaion. in a literature review of PIS, we identified 344 case with sufficient data for analysis of these clinical characteristics. in these selected cases, we found that: (a) PIS was most often diagnosed at an advanced stage and high grade;(b) most of the turnos were location in arease where radical surgey could not be performed;(c) the responce rate to chemotheapy was almost always poor; and (d) most partient which PIS dled from locally advanced and/or metastaic disease within a few months after diagnosis.PIS is a serious, usually fatal, late complication of radiotherrapy and it should be weighed in the decision to use this modality of therapy in the follow up of cance partients a low theshold of suspication for PIS is recommended in order to detect it early for possible resection.Because of the poor pronosis more aggressive and investingative chemotherra peutic regimens are warraned. [J Natl Caner Inst 1988;80:233–240]