Clinical Trials in Advanced Sarcomas
Dr. Lor Randall: Unfortunately, not all sarcomas are curable, and there is a small subset of patients, sometimes not so small, that have progressive disease despite some of the best treatments at recognized sarcoma centers. Those patients are certainly eligible potentially for Phase I and Phase II clinical trials, and the patient and their team should take pause and ask a few very fundamental questions:
- Are these treating physicians members of SARC?
- Are they members of CTOS?
- Are they looking at the leading edge research that's going on?
If so that's wonderful, but if not, they should certainly get a second opinion from members of these organizations who are really trying to push the envelope. I don't think that a patient should consider their advanced sarcoma status as a medical emergency. What I mean by that is they should take pause, as I just said, to think about alternate Phase I and Phase II clinical trials and get a second opinion, perhaps from someone who has a trial that will work to their advantage over something else that's being proposed. It's a very, very tricky situation, but something that's very important to do.