Targeted Treatment based on Diagnosis
Dr. Robert Maki: There are a variety of issues which are occurring now which are having an impact on how we treat patients, and more and more we are deciding how to treat patients based on the very specific name of the sarcoma or the biology of the sarcoma. The specific diagnosis has implications in terms of which drugs will work the best. And research which is ongoing, month to month, is telling us new things about each of these different sarcoma subtypes. And so knowing which diagnosis you have will hopefully inform better and better over time which drugs there are to choose from.
One good example is a drug that is available in Europe and only available through an expanded access program in the United States, a drug called Trabectedin or ET-743. This particular drug, just approved in Europe, is very useful for one specific type of sarcoma, myxoid-round cell liposarcoma, and the response rate there is quite dramatic. If you happen to have that diagnosis, this is the sort of thing that we choose for such a person. And in a similar way we are trying to match a specific diagnosis to a specific group of treatments. Now that list continues to change, and that's where research is showing us the way on a faster and faster basis.