International Soft Tissue Sarcoma Consortium

Headquarters: Center for Research Informatics, University of Chicago

Researchers from the United States and Europe have created this Consortium with the goal of establishing a database containing information from clinical trials on children with rhabdomyosarcoma from around the world and making that clinical data available to investigators for data mining studies. The INSTRuCT database will soon integrate clinical data from the COG, the German BFM and CWS groups, the European Soft Tissue Sarcoma Study Group (EpSSG), the Italian AIEOP-STSC group, and the International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP).

About Soft Tissue Sarcoma

Soft tissue sarcomas in children are relatively rare. Approximately 850 to 900 children and adolescents are diagnosed each year with rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) or one of the non-RMS soft tissue sarcomas (NRSTS). RMS is the most common soft tissue sarcoma in children 14 years old and younger, and NRSTS is more common in adolescents and young adults. Infants also get NRSTS, but their tumors constitute a distinctive set of histologies, including infantile fibrosarcoma and malignant hemangiopericytoma, not seen in adolescents. Surgery is a major therapeutic modality for all pediatric soft tissue sarcomas, and radiation can play a role in the local therapy for these tumors. RMS is always treated with adjuvant chemotherapy, whereas chemotherapy is reserved for the subset of NRSTS that are high grade or unresectable.

Consortium Members