The challenge of finding new therapeutic avenues in soft tissue sarcomas

Soft tissue sarcomas are rare malignancies of mesenchymal origin comprising about 1% of all adult cancers. Systemic therapies for locally advanced and metastatic disease have been restricted for decades to very few effective and approved agents such as doxorubicin and ifosfamide. However, new therapeutic avenues including new drug developments and registrations such as trabectedin, pazopanib and eribulin as well as numerous clinical trial options have recently enriched the therapeutic armamentarium in the treatment of patients with advanced soft tissue sarcomas. The challenges and pitfalls of finding such new therapeutic avenues in recent years for the treatment benefit of patients with soft tissue sarcomas will be presented in this chapter within the thematic series on “Challenges in Sarcoma”.