Funded by the Dick Vitale Pediatric Cancer Research Fund
Osteosarcoma is the most common bone cancer of children. When this cancer recurs in the lungs, we have no effective therapies for these patients, and they continue to be treated with the same drugs that have been used for the past 40 years. This work seeks to develop new treatment options for patients with recurrent osteosarcoma. We will use dogs, a natural model of this cancer, to test a new drug combination which uses the immune system to stop osteosarcoma growth. We will also use advanced monitoring techniques to determine which patients benefit from this new treatment. Testing these drugs in dogs will inform how best to use these new therapies for human patients with osteosarcoma. Importantly, it uses drugs which are also readily able to be used in human patients, thus having the potential for rapid movement to the clinic.
