Ogura K, et al. - This study was carried out to ascertain whether an elevated time to treatment initiation (TTI) is correlated with overall survival in patients with soft-tissue sarcoma, and to identify the factors associated with a prolonged TTI. Between 2004 and 2015, researchers distinguished 23,786 patients from the National Cancer Database who underwent definitive surgery for a localized high-grade soft-tissue sarcoma of the limbs or trunk. The association between a number of factors and overall survival was analyzed by using a Cox proportional hazards model. They computed the incidence rate ratio using negative binomial regression models to distinguish the factors that affected TTI. The results showed that a time to treatment initiation of more than 30 days after diagnosis was independently correlated with poorer survival. As per the results, the hazard ratio demonstrated a linear increase, particularly whether the TTI was more than 50 days. Starting treatment within 30 days of diagnosis is recommended to achieve the highest likelihood of cure for localized high-grade soft-tissue sarcomas in the limbs and trunk, even when a patient needs to be referred to a specialist centre.