Sarcoma network

Bone and soft tissue tumors are very frequent. Less than 1% of them, however, are malignant, so-called sarcomas. Among these sarcomas, more than 50 different subtypes have been discerned, each individually rare and with its own biological and clinical features.

Despite numerous breakthroughs in the last few decades, the proportion (around 1/3) who cannot be cured remains too high. Thus, better approaches to identify the aggressive sarcomas, to improve treatment stratification, and to find new treatment targets are needed. The morphological heterogeneity among sarcomas, combined with the facts that they may affect any age group and that they could develop at all anatomical sites, calls for centralized management of the patients. Lund University Hospital (SUS Lund) is for many years one of the national sarcoma centers, where sarcoma patients are diagnosed and treated.

Sarcoma-related research, covering anything from experimental biology to clinical trials, has been performed by clinicians and scientists affiliated with Lund University (LU) and/or SUS Lund for many years. Hence, extensive series of tumor samples have by now been collected and characterized with various methods, and clinical follow-up data are available for a large proportion of the patients. Furthermore, there is considerable expertise in Lund on aspects ranging from the diagnostics, imaging, and treatment of sarcoma patients to mechanistic models of sarcoma development. By now providing an open forum for all these sarcoma groups within the framework of LUCC, the hope is that synergistic approaches should be identified, allowing research groups to collaborate on specific topics.

With the ultimate goal of improving outcome for sarcoma patients, the purpose of LUCC Sarcoma network is to facilitate an exchange of ideas between clinicians and scientists from different backgrounds of sarcoma research. We hope to achieve these results by:

Encouraging new translational research projects, utilizing state-of-the-art technologies.
Focusing scientific projects on clinically relevant topics.

The LUCC sarcoma network will continue to organize meetings with local as well as external speakers (see LUCC calendar). For further information, please contact one of the two network coordinators.