SARCOMA

There are more than 70 subtypes that fall under the soft tissue sarcoma (STS) umbrella, according to the World Health Organization, and only account for approximately 1% of all cancers in adult patients. Yet, physicians continue to try to treat all sarcomas the same, making drug development for these types of tumors quite slow and frustrating.

A look back at all the FDA news that happened in the month of June, including in multiple myeloma, hematology, sarcoma, and lung cancer.

The FDA has granted orphan drug designation to its EZH2-inhibitor tazemetostat for the treatment of adults with INI1-negative epithelioid sarcoma, Epizyme has announced.

Six to 9 months of treatment with neoadjuvant imatinib (Gleevec) was a promising treatment for patients with large gastric gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), according to the results of a small multinational study in Asian patients.

Lisa H. Butterfield, PhD, discusses efficacy and biomarker results of the phase II SARC028 study, which explored pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in advanced soft tissue and bone sarcomas, during the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified an exceptional responder to pembrolizumab – a treatment-naïve patient with metastatic uterine leiomyosarcoma who had a complete tumor remission for more than 2 years on the PD-1 inhibitor.

Survivors of Ewing sarcoma are left with few long-term complications, according to results from a nonrandomized observational cohort study.

Researchers offer a review of the role of adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy in localized soft tissue sarcoma. 

The investigational compound 5-imino-13-deoxydoxorubicin showed promising activity in patients with metastatic and nonresectable soft tissue sarcoma.

Shreyaskumar R. Patel, MD and Jonathan C. Trent, MD discussed the use of trabectedin and the future of the treatment paradigms in soft tissue sarcoma.

This section covers the Current Treatment Strategies section of the current Evolving Paradigms in Soft Tissue Sarcoma issue.

External beam radiation therapy (EBRT) lowers the risk of local recurrence in patients with either retroperitoneal or extremity sarcomas.

This section covers the Emerging Cytotoxic Agents, Current and Emerging Targets, and Emerging Therapies for Specific Histologies sections of the current Evolving Paradigms in Soft Tissue Sarcoma issue.

This section covers the Current Treatment Strategies section of the current Evolving Paradigms in Soft Tissue Sarcoma issue.

This section covers the Introduction and Epidemiology, Risk Factors, Detection and Diagnosis, and Staging and Prognosis sections of the current Evolving Paradigms in Soft Tissue Sarcoma issue.

Several subtypes of difficult-to-treat sarcomas may respond to treatment with PD-1 pathway inhibiting immunotherapies, according to findings of an immunohistochemistry analysis of a large patient population.

Sarcoma physician and researcher Robert G. Maki, MD, PhD, has joined the leadership team at Northwell Health Cancer Institute.

Elizabeth Loggers, MD, PhD, discusses the findings of the phase II SARC028 trial in sarcoma.

Nancy Gordon, MD, speaks about her osteosarcoma research, the next steps following the findings of the study, and what she envisions for the treatment landscape of osteosarcoma over the next decade.

Dimosthenis Andreou, MD, orthopedic oncologist, University Hospital Münster, discusses prognostic factors influencing local control in Ewing sarcoma.

Breelyn Wilky, MD, recently sat down <em>Targeted Oncology</em> to discuss recent findings of a trial investigating axitanib and pembrolizumab in soft tissue sarcomas, as well as the role she envisions for immunotherapy in the treatment of sarcoma.

Kiran Turaga, MD, MPH, surgical oncologist, University of Chicago Cancer Center, speaks on distinguishing between the different subtypes of sarcomas.

According to updated study findings, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) reduced the size of tumors in patients with a subtype of soft tissue sarcoma.

A lower dose of radiation therapy following surgery did not improve limb function and was not found to be non-inferior compared with standard dose radiation 2 years post procedure in patients extremity soft tissue sarcoma.&nbsp;

TRC105, an endoglin antibody, combined with pazopanib showed promising anti-tumor activity in patients with advanced angiosarcoma, warranting the initiation of a phase III study to explore the combination further.<br /> &nbsp;