I have been receiving amazing feedback from the labs that we are funding, AND from the clinicians we are communicating with on a regular basis. My surgeon at Dana Farber walked in the room the other day to have a look at a suspicious lump (that turned out to be a pec muscle on a skinny body) and before he said hi, he started to excitedly talk about how his patients are all interconnected as a result of Angiosarcoma Awareness. Another clinician at MD Anderson has echoed these sentiments letting me know that all of his "new" patients know all about him as well as other clinician experts in the field as a result of our collective efforts.
The lab that we are funding at Sloan-Kettering is getting ready to publish two papers on angiosarcoma that will reveal another possible target for therapeutic intervention. The lab in Minnesota that we are funding is getting ready to enroll the first doggie patients into a clinical trial that will hopefully cure us and "our best friends".
The Chief of Sarcoma and Melanoma at Sloan-Kettering, Gary Schwartz MD, had this to say when we asked him for his thought's on what we are doing:
"Angiosarcoma Awareness has brought much needed attention to this rare
disease. As a result of this groups efforts, there is now a large scale
scientific endeavor aimed specifically at understanding what drives
angiosarcoma. This is already being translated into new clinical trials for
patients with this disease"
I'd love to reflect on all this wonderful news with a sense of accomplishment and pride, but until I can add the line, "Angiosarcoma used to be a deadly aggressive form of cancer but can now be effectively treated by....", I will only feel driven to move faster.
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