Researchers at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center are continually studying sarcomas and new therapies aimed at treating them. Some highlights:

• Duke excels in a novel treatment for sarcomas that uses heat to destroy tumor tissue while leaving surrounding tissue unharmed. Heat allows certain chemotherapy drugs to more effectively attack the tumor. Duke radiation oncologists expanded on this therapy by developing and producing a novel tool that measures the temperature of a tumor to determine where drugs are most needed to kill the tumor.

  Using their new device, the team heats the tumor, then scans it with magnetic resonance imaging to measure tumor temperature and heat distribution. The resulting images show doctors where the unheated sections of the tumor are, and hence where they need to direct further treatments. Duke has received millions of dollars to study and test their new approach in patients, and is currently enrolling patients in several hyperthermia clinical trials.

• Researchers are studying sarcomas in children, adolescents, and young adults. Areas of interest include investigation of new agents for rhabdomyosarcoma patients who have the lowest chance of long-term survival.

  Duke oncologist Philip Breitfeld, MD, vice chair of the Soft Tissue Sarcoma Committee of the national Children's Oncology Group, has been conducting clinical trials investigating the response rate of rhabdomyosarcoma to a therapy that inhibits a specific enzyme needed for DNA replication, thereby targeting rapidly dividing cancer cells. In addition, Breitfeld is protocol chair for the first national study of relapsed rhabdomyosarcoma that is examining the dosing schedule of the cancer drug irinotecan as a therapy targeting that type of tumor.

• Orthopaedic oncologist Brian Brigman, MD, PhD, is working with members of the plastic surgery research team to develop better functioning replacements for large areas of resected bone using autologous stem cells.
• Surgical oncologist Douglas Tyler, MD, and colleagues are studying methods for improving regional therapies for sarcomas. They have developed animal models that mimic the human clinical situation of advanced extremity sarcoma, and are testing new drugs that block cancer cells’ resistance to anti-cancer treatment.