Phase I Solid Tumor Trials And Sarcoma
Dr. Robert Maki: So there can be some studies which are applicable that are just called studies for solid tumors. Certainly sarcomas are solid tumors. They are rare solid tumors - they comprise less than 1% of all solid tumor cancers that occur in the United States. There are about 1.4 million new cancers that occur each year and only about 13,000 sarcomas. Amongst those there are 100 different diagnoses, practically, of different sarcomas, each one which may have unique treatment. So if there are such things as Phase II studies available, to me that's the best option in general for people with sarcoma, if they qualify, because it means the drug has been tested to some degree and we know what dose, more or less, to give people.
The situation where you may see the term "solid tumor" used is more with what are called Phase I studies, and these are studies in which we don't even know what the right dose is yet to give people. And we enroll a few people at a time and give them increasing doses of medication until we find the maximum dose that people tolerate before they get sick. So in those sorts of studies we really don't care what type of cancer is involved, we want to find out about the side effects. And this is where people with sarcoma can get involved in research very early, and they may find a new compound that may be applicable to them. In fact we use some of those results that we find from those Phase I studies to sometimes direct to a new Phase II study specifically for sarcoma if we see good results with the Phase I study.