Our Director of Research, Denise Robinson, attended the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2023 Annual Meeting and the Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration (SARC) Semi-annual Meeting in Chicago, IL, in early June. Over 30,000 people joined together in person to conquer cancer!

ASCO is the world’s leading organization for oncology, bringing together clinicians, patient advocates, and professionals to learn and discuss research and programs that aim to change the lives of people with cancer. SARC supports research to prevent, treat and cure sarcomas – of which EHE is an ultra-rare subtype.

Dr. Bill Tap, MSKCC, gave an empowering talk at the SARC meeting challenging all stakeholders to expand our approach and thinking on rare cancer research. His talk, Sarcoma – the evolution of care in rare cancers, highlighted the importance of real-world data in rare cancer research – specifically calling out the patient-led research initiatives in the EHE community. The primary takeaway for doctors and advocates: there is lots of data out there that can help us better understand and study rare cancers. Data from medical records, registries and clinical trial results can all be synthesized to improve our understanding of rare diseases like EHE.. Thank you, Dr. Tap for championing EHE and rare cancer research.

Dr. Silvia Stacchiotti and colleagues, IRCCS Foundation National Cancer Institute, presented a poster entitled Outcome of patients (PTS) with advanced epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (EHE) after failure on sirolimus (S). This data reviewed the outcome of patients with advanced EHE from a prior retrospective study who discontinued sirolimus for any reason. The conclusions highlighted that those patients who discontinued sirolimus for reasons other than disease progression benefitted from sirolimus re-challenge (restarting treatment), which suggests that in advanced EHE there is a subset of long-responders to sirolimus. Dr. Stacchiotti is a force of nature in EHE research. Stay tuned, she and her colleagues will continue to bring forward new data!

Dr. Sujana Movva, MSKCC, presented data from A pilot study of lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab in patients with advanced sarcoma. This study is ongoing and currently enrolling patients at MSK, which includes EHE patients. Many thanks to patients who have participated in this study, and to generous donors in the EHE community who have helped make this study possible. Finally, a great many thanks to Dr. Movva and her MSK colleagues who continue to provide expert care and consultation to EHE patients worldwide!