Guest Editor(s)
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- Prof. Laurence H. Baker
- Departments of Internal Medicine and Pharmacology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Website | E-mail
Special Issue Introduction
Many soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are devastating and aggressive cancer, often with poor outcomes. Current treatment relies on wide excision surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. Despite the toxicity of these interventions, 50% of patients are expected to develop metastatic disease, and many of those patients are dying from their cancer. New therapeutic approaches are urgently needed. While comprehensive genomic studies did not often reveal recurrent activating mutations in easily targetable oncogenes, unlike other cancers, these studies did demonstrate pronounced chromosomal instability for the majority of the most serious STS.
The study of sarcomas over the past 50 years has yielded numerous scientific breakthroughs that have benefited the entire field of cancer. The history begins with the discovery by Rous that a sarcoma in chickens was the result of a viral infection. Later, Bishop and Varmus demonstrated that this cancer was a consequence of viral transmission of a cellular event, leading to the discovery of the first oncogene, src (2). TP53 mutations and other DNA damage repair genes, which are ubiquitous in many STS that share chromosomal instability features.
We plan to feature the following topics:
● Future of genomics in STS;
● Telemedicine for sarcoma patients;
● Blood biomarkers in sarcomas;
● Metabolomics and cancer therapy;
● Rare primary sites for STS;
● Importance of germline mutation in STS;
● Patient advocacy for rare cancer initiatives;
● Benefits of rigorous trial design in rare cancers.
Submission Deadline
31 Mar 2022
Journal of Cancer Metastasis and Treatment
