More information on the Phase 2 Clinical Trail to Treat Conventional Chondrosarcoma

A CS Warrior on the Facebook Chondrosarcoma Support Group entered a new Phase 2 clinical trial yesterday specifically for unresectable and metastatic conventional CS that combines a histone deacetylase inhibitor Belinostat (FDA approved for a type of lymphoma) with an experimental DNA hypomethylating agent Guadecitabine (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/study/NCT04340843). The study is currently recruiting at Columbia Medical Center in NY and Oklahoma, and more US study sites will be opening.

The study PI, Dr. Matthew Ingham, is a protégé and collaborator of Dr. Gary Schwartz at Columbia Medical in NYC who’s spent his career studying sarcoma treatment. I’ve included audio of Dr. Ingham sharing the study rational, which involves the unusually large number of epigenetic abnormalities observed in CS (meaning the ways that genes are turned on or off in CS to promote cancer growth). As descried by Dr. Ingham, the basic treatment strategy was applied successfully in blood malignancy (https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/jco.2008.26.15_suppl.7057) and in an animal model using human CS cells lines (https://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/24/2_Supplement/A30). Although one of the epigenetic effects relates to the IDH mutation that’s frequently observed in CS (hypermethylation), the animal model found the treatment effect with or without the IDH mutation, and the study does *not* require the IDH mutation (they will look at differences between those with and without IDH mutation).
Next steps are a pre-treatment biopsy, treatment starts in two weeks, and then first results should come in about two months after that. Looking forward to sharing about how it goes!

https://www.facebook.com/seth.axelrod/videos/10224829894154045