National Cancer Center Opens "Sarcoma Center" to Provide Personalized Integrated Care

The National Cancer Center announced on the 11th that it has opened the "Sarcoma Center" to provide optimal, personalized treatment for patients with sarcoma, a representative rare cancer.

On the 9th, at the opening ceremony of the Sarcoma Center affiliated with the National Cancer Center hospital located in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province, Director Han-Kwang Yang and Rare Cancer Center Director Junhyuk Kim, along with medical staff, are taking a commemorative photo. National Cancer Center

Sarcoma is a representative rare cancer that occurs in both children and adults, and multidisciplinary collaboration is essential throughout diagnosis and treatment. Since 2017, medical staff at the National Cancer Center have organized the "Sarcoma Research Group" to lead clinical and basic research, and since 2018, have implemented "multidisciplinary sarcoma care" to provide patient-tailored treatment.

In particular, the center is laying the foundation for precision medicine tailored to sarcoma patients by conducting: multicenter clinical trial research, such as phase 1/2 clinical trials for recurrent and progressive osteosarcoma and phase 2 clinical trials for adjuvant chemotherapy in stage 3 soft tissue sarcoma; Korea's first skeletal reconstruction research using 3D printing; and the development of the country's first sarcoma-specific cancer gene panel and new drug development research (as part of the next-generation bio project) through the establishment of a multicenter sarcoma resource sharing platform (KBP Innovative Biobanking Consortium Project).

Based on these research achievements, the Sarcoma Center plans to have specialists from the Rare Cancer Center-including orthopedics (musculoskeletal tumor clinic), hematology-oncology, pediatrics, radiation oncology, pathology, and radiology-collaborate to manage an average of about 30 sarcoma patients per day. The center also aims to enhance hospital operational efficiency by sharing human resources such as inpatient and on-call dedicated physicians and physician assistant (PA) nurses.

Kim Junhyuk, Director of the Rare Cancer Center at the National Cancer Center, stated, "About 2,000 new sarcoma patients are diagnosed each year in Korea, and this number is increasing annually," adding, "Through integrated care and research with various departments within the center, we will improve treatment outcomes for sarcoma patients."

Yang Hankwang, Director of the National Cancer Center, emphasized, "I expect that clinical and translational research in the field of sarcoma will become even more active, enabling us to provide optimal treatment," and added, "We will elevate the Rare Cancer Center, which houses the Sarcoma Center, to the Rare Cancer Treatment Department to fulfill the National Cancer Center's public mission."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.