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We discovered a new biomarker that can tell us if someone's sarcoma is aggressive which can be used to predict patient outcomes, and hence decide on best treatments.
About
There has only been very small improvement in the clinical outcome for patients with sarcomas (5-year relative survival of 47% for patients diagnosed in 1990 and 55% currently (Sarcoma UK). Although each sarcoma has distinctive histological characteristics, generally they are currently treated in similar ways. While surgical resection is the treatment of choice, how extensive that excision should be, and whether it should be preceded or followed by other treatment is often unclear and multivariate.
Key Benefits
Development of the first-ever test able to predict the survival of any sarcoma patient from the time of diagnosis would be a real breakthrough in sarcoma management. In general, having a predictive test for any type of tumour is a Holy Grail in oncology, but in sarcoma the field is very much behind other, more common malignancies such as carcinomas. Therefore, this test would be immediately applied across the healthcare worldwide. Specially, because it is based on the qPCR technology, which is in wide use since Covid.
Applications
Soft tissue sarcoma (STS) is a rare tumour, occurring in approximately 1 to 2 of every 100,000 individuals worldwide, but its prognosis is generally poor. There are around 4,300 new soft tissue sarcoma cases in England every year, that's around 12 every day (2017-2019). Incidence rates for soft tissue sarcoma in the UK are highest in people aged 80-84 (1996-2010), and because of the aging population, the numbers increase. Since 2013-2015, soft tissue sarcoma incidence rates have increased by 5% in England (2017-2019). Therefore, although it is not a huge market for the predictive test proposed, it is a very big medical problem and its significance is growing. Such a test availability would change the management of sarcomas.