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Professor Robin Jones, Head of the Sarcoma Unit
Collaboration is vital when it comes to treating sarcomas. Because they affect connective tissue, sarcomas can appear in any part of the body so are often difficult to diagnose, and their rarity making up just one per cent of all adult cancers – means developing new treatments can be challenging.
The Royal Marsden’s Sarcoma Unit works with international centres to improve the care and treatment of patients with these diseases. The unit is one of the largest in Europe, and is recognised worldwide for its strength in diagnosing and treating soft-tissue sarcomas.
Dr Silvia Stacchiotti, Medical Oncologist at the National Cancer Institute in Milan, regularly works with The Royal Marsden. She says: “From sharing expertise and information, to trial recruitment and applications for funding, collaboration means we’re able to achieve so much more.”
Researching new treatments
Professor Robin Jones, Consultant Medical Oncologist and Head of the Sarcoma Unit, says: “Securing approval for new drugs to treat sarcomas is difficult as there often aren’t enough patients for a clinical trial within a single country.” But last year, Professor Jones worked with centres in countries such as Italy, Taiwan and the USA to recruit patients with advanced epithelioid sarcoma to a clinical trial for experimental drug tazemetostat, and secured FDA approval as a result.
The unit is also working on the Navigator trial with teams from the USA and Europe to explore the benefits of avapritinib for a molecular subgroup of gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GISTs), sarcomas that appear in the gastrointestinal tract, which is seeing promising results.
Surgical innovation
As sarcomas can develop in any part of the body and grow to large sizes, surgery can be challenging. Consultant Surgeon Mr Dirk Strauss is the UK’s Principal Investigator for the STRASS2 trial, working with specialist units across Europe, North America and Australasia to optimise the benefits of surgery for retroperitoneal sarcomas.
“This trial is examining if chemotherapy before surgery can reduce the risk of the cancer coming back,” Mr Strauss says. “We also collaborate in the Transatlantic Australasian Retroperitoneal Sarcoma Working Group, which is helping to standardise and improve care for patients.”
Collecting data
Working with The Institute of Cancer Research, London and international collaborators, the Sarcoma Unit won a £2.5-million Cancer Research UK Accelerator Award to develop the world’s largest digital hub of sarcoma clinical and research data. Using artificial intelligence to analyse the data, Consultant Radiologist Dr Christina Messiou and her fellow researchers will predict and test patient response to drugs for high-risk sarcomas. “This project will help to develop new treatments for patients with metastatic sarcomas, who currently have poor outcomes,” she says.
Meanwhile, Dr Khin Thway, Consultant Histopathologist, has worked with international pathologists to develop the World Health Organization’s classification of sarcomas, of which there are over 100 known types and many subtypes. “The Royal Marsden may only see three to four cases of a certain type each year,” she says. “Collaboration means we can build a picture of how each tumour type behaves so clinicians can tailor treatment to manage the disease more effectively.”
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