Surgical oncologist Steve R. Martinez and his colleagues have found that significant racial and ethnic differences exist in the treatment and survival of patients with soft-tissue sarcomas, a rare but dangerous cancer that begins in muscle, fat, blood vessels or other supporting tissue of the body. The study, published in CANCER, found that blacks diagnosed with soft-tissue sarcomas in an arm or leg were much less likely than other populations to receive certain limb-sparing treatments, and their overall survival was poorer. Blacks had a 39 percent higher death rate related to their disease, even when taking into account various factors known to influence sarcoma-specific survival, compared to other population groups.