In the first study to address disparities in extremity soft-tissue sarcomas, researchers revealed significant racial and ethnic differences in adult patients who were diagnosed and treated between 1988 and 2003. Steve Martinez noted that the most striking outcome was that blacks diagnosed with soft-tissue sarcomas in an arm or leg were much less likely than other populations to receive limb-sparing treatments and their overall survival was poorer. When compared with whites, blacks had a 39 percent higher death rate related to their disease.