Chapters Transcript Video Pediatric Cancer Expert Explains New Options for Children With Sarcomas Sarcomas are rare cancers which can occur anywhere in the body. When they arise in the bone, they are called bone sarcomas. And when they arise in the soft tissues, they are called soft tissue sarcomas. And those are primarily in the muscles, the connective tissues and various organs in the body. Usually a sarcoma presents as a lump if it's a soft tissue tumor and if it arises in the bone, it's usually pain. Sometimes it can present as a fracture. And usually we have teenagers who are very active in sport and sometimes with trivial trauma, they have a fracture that should raise alarms for us to think that there was something actually wrong in the bone for it to fracture. So easily, pediatric sarcomas tend to be much more sensitive to chemotherapy. And most sarcomas in pediatrics are treated with chemotherapy. On the other hand, sarcomas which occur in adults tend to not be as chemo sensitive and so surgery becomes really important. And many of the cancers are primarily treated with surgery and radiation therapy. With the expanding knowledge of genetics and molecular genetics. We were able to find out that many, many sarcomas are actually driven by mistakes which occur with genes either with two genes coming together and getting fused and those fusions drive the creation of a cancer. Recently, there have been actually drugs which can target these specific fusions. And a classic example of that was the drug Larrain, which targeted Trek fusions. And when we started using these in Trek fusion cancers, these tumors which were generally not responsive to chemotherapy really began to shrink dramatically allowing the surgeon to do a better operation at Guerin Children's and Cedar cyanide cancer. We have established a sarcoma program which cares for patients through the ages. So, right from birth until an advanced age, knowing that sarcomas can occur at all ages. It's a group of highly skilled individuals with surgeons radiation oncologist and medical and pediatric oncologist, together with expert pathology and molecular geneticists who all get together supported by our nurses and social workers to provide the sarcoma patient with comprehensive care with the latest available treatments and technologies. Created by
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