Dr. Elizabeth H. Baldini on Systemic Therapy for Sarcoma

Elizabeth H. Baldini, MD, MPH, director, radiation oncology, center for sarcoma and bone oncology, associate professor of radiation oncology, Harvard Medical School, discusses sarcoma challenges as well as areas of promise.

Sarcoma is difficult to treat because it’s a rare disease— making up less than 1% of all cancers—and has over 50 different histologic subtypes.

The role of systemic therapy is very important, she says. They may have leiomyosarcoma has a very high distant recurrence rate, and a lower local recurrence rate compared to dedifferentiated liposarcoma. This makes leiomyosarcoma a good subtype to study new agents in neoadjuvant systemic trials upfront. Radiation could potentially even be referred in this setting.

Immunotherapy is also a very exciting area for sarcoma, says Baldini.