On November 30 and December 1, 2nd Joint Annual General Meeting of Japan Sarcoma Association (JSA) and Japan Society of Clinical Sarcoma (JSCS) is to be held at Tokyo Convention Hall. (Tokyo Convention Hall is in the building where Kameda Clinic is located.) Please refer to the poster attached for application.


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After the convention on November 30, a get-together meeting is planned from 6:50pm at Hotel Monterey Ginza. (Please apply to the same contact number in the poster. About 5,000 yen per person.)

NPO Cure Sarcoma’s 4th ordinary general meeting is to be held as follows:

Time: 1-4:30pm on April 16, 2017 (over-dinner gathering 5:30-7:30 pm) Place: Tokyo Shigoto Center B1 Auditorium Agenda: Part 1- General Meeting (Activity plan, budget, staffing, etc.) Part 2- Seminar and Information Sharing Meeting 1. Seminar by Dr. Takahashi (Director of Sarcoma Center, International University of Health and Welfare, Mita Hospital) on the frontline of sarcoma genome analysis 2. Information sharing among adult soft tissue sarcoma patients and families on their medical treatments

If you are interested in attending our general meeting, seminar, and over-dinner gathering, please contact us at support10@curesarcoma.jp by April 11.

NPO Cure Sarcoma attended RFL in Ochanomizu, Tokyo on March 25 and 26.  This was the season’s first RFL and was held in Ochanomizu for the first time. Dr. Nakamura from Chicago University held a lecture seminar.

We plan to attend several other RFLs in 2017. Please join us if you have a chance.

A satellite symposium of Japan Sarcoma Association was held in Tokyo on December 5, 2016 followed by the main Kyoto conference in the precedent week.

A staff member from Ministry of Health、Labour and Welfare also attended and talked about Japanese version of compassionate use system. However, this system is not well-known yet and has many systematic problems. We would like to have the usage hurdle lowered for the patients.

On December 1 & 2 in 2016, the first general meeting of Japan Sarcoma Association and Japan Clinical Sarcoma Association was successfully held in Kyoto. 
This was the first formal conference of two sarcoma associations after our 10 years of preparation work. Wide range of topics were discussed including genome analysis, basic medical science, pathological diagnosis, local control treatment, surgical treatment, medical treatment, clinical tests, survivorship, and so on. Three doctors from US also attended. Over 100 doctors, patients and family members could have close communication at an over-dinner gathering on the first night. NPO Cure Sarcoma supported this conference and also participated in the poster sessions.
In the afternoon of the second day, we held an information sharing meeting among patient and family members. Nearly 50 members attended. The event was quite memorable and we really felt a joy of having this sarcoma patient association network. However, the reality is that 3000-5000 new patients suffer from sarcomas and many of them do not have any contacts with this kind of network. We don’t have enough insurance covered medicine and sarcoma is still far from a curable disease. A lot still needs to be done. We would like to work hard for the next step with a help of all the members.

NPO Cure Sarcoma attended RFLs in Tokyo (Komazawa), Fukushima, Fukuoka and Ashiya. We plan to attend some other coming RFLs in Gumma, Kochi, etc.
Please join us if you have a chance.

Mr. Onishi, Chairman of NPO Cure Sarcoma visited Mr. Masaru Miyazaki, a Member of the House of Councillors, with two other members of rare cancer patients’ support groups (Ms. Umaue of Children’ Brain Tumor Support Group and Mr. Nishidate of GISTERS.)

Mr. Miyazaki is a rookie House Member from Komeito representing Saitama Prefecture. He requested this meeting because he wanted to learn more about rare cancers. We explained the current treatment status of rare cancers and adult soft tissue sarcoma.  We also submitted a petition to ask help for creating rare cancer treatment centers and adequate treatment systems, training medical specialists, and supporting basic clinical research on sarcomas.

A Member of the House of Councillors has a long 6-year-term. We hope our steady petition activities will be paid off.

Eisai Co., Ltd. announced today that the results of an additional analysis of a Phase III clinical study (Study 309) of its in-house discovered and developed anticancer agent Halaven® (eribulin mesylate, “eribulin”) in patients with locally advanced, recurrent or metastatic soft tissue sarcoma (liposarcoma or leiomyosarcoma) have been presented at a plenary session of the 14th Japanese Society of Medical Oncology (JSMO) Annual Meeting held in Kobe from July 28 to 30, 2016.

 Study 309 was a Phase III clinical study which examined the efficacy and safety of eribulin versus dacarbazine in 452 patients aged 18 years and older with locally advanced, recurrent or metastatic soft tissue sarcoma (liposarcoma or leiomyosarcoma) who had disease progression following standard therapies (including an anthracycline and at least one other additional regimen).

 According to the results of preplanned subgroup analyses of the duration of response in patients with liposarcoma and leiomyosarcoma, median duration of response for the eribulin treatment was 12.5 months [95% CI: 1.7-Not Estimable] and median duration of response for dacarbazine treatment was 4.2 months [95% CI: 2.2-14.7].

Dr. Takahashi, Chairperson of the Board of Japan Sarcoma Association and Department Director at Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases), made a visit to Mr. Shiozaki, Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare.
He explained the details of founding Japan Sarcoma Association and the planned activities including genome analysis. He also asked for the Minister’s further support on establishing proper treatment systems for sarcomas, which are the types of very rare cancers, and promoting genome analysis research.

Eisai Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Tokyo, CEO: Haruo Naito, “Eisai”) announced on February 29 that it had received approval in Japan for its in-house developed anticancer agent Halaven® (eribulin mesylate) as a treatment of patients with soft tissue sarcoma. Halaven is the first and only single agent to demonstrate an overall survival (OS) benefit in a Phase III trial in patients with advanced, recurrent or metastatic soft tissue sarcoma (liposarcoma or leiomyosarcoma).