2nd ordinary general meeting of NPO Cure Sarcoma is to be held as follows:

Time: 2-4pm May 16 (Saturday), 2015

Place: 
   NPO Cure Sarcoma tent at Relay for Life Japan 2015 Ibaraki Kenkyugakuen Ekimae Koen,  
   2-1 Gakuenminami, Tsukuba, Ibaraki (Park in front of  Tsukuba Express Kenkyugakuen Station)

Subject:
   Part 1- General Meeting (2014 activity reports and 2015 activity plans)
   Part 2- Information Sharing Meeting among members and observers

Mail notices have been sent to NPO members.

We decided to hold this general meeting in conjunction with Relay for Life Japan 2015 Ibaraki event because NPO Cure Sarcoma will participate in this RFL as a team. 

The meeting will resume soon after the opening ceremony of RFL at 2 p.m.

We will welcome non-members as an observer.  Please feel free to stop by and share information with us.

For further information, please contact our Cure Sarcoma office at upport10@curesarcoma.jp

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

Time: 3-5pm March 21, 2014
Place: Tokyo Shigoto Center
Subject: Part 1- General Meeting; Part 2- Information Sharing Meeting

An over-dinner gathering is planned from 5:30 p.m. after the ordinary general meeting.

10th Sarcoma Seminar is to be held: NPO Cure Sarcoma is going to co-sponsor 10th Sarcoma Seminar with General Incorporated Association Cure Sarcoma Center as follows:

Time: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., February 26, 2015
Place: Luke Hall, Mochida Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.
Speakers:
Dr. Nomori: Cryosurgery on malignant lung tumors
Dr. Koike: RFA on liver tumors
Dr. Takahashi: Status report on leiomyosarcoma treatment
Dr. Ohno, Dr. Hatae, Dr. Yajima, Dr. Teraoka: Status reports on sarcoma surgery treatments
Dr. Narahara:
 Status report on treatment using Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) inhibitor Pazopanib (Votrient)
Dr. Koyama, Dr. Oyama:
 Status report on international clinical study of newly developed sarcoma remedy

An over-dinner gathering is planned from 6 p.m. after the seminar.

On December 4 and 5, five members including myself from NPO Cure Sarcoma (an organization of adult soft tissue sarcoma patients and families) attended the workshop “The Japan-United States International Workshop on the Sarcoma Research and Therapy” in Honolulu, Hawaii. This workshop acted as a kickoff meeting of the Japanese Sarcoma Association. We were looking forward to attend the conference and hear the expected progress.

It was very refreshing to hear the presentations of familiar Japanese doctors in English. We learned the two new treatments (combination use of pazopanib and denosumab to the bone metastasis of soft tissue sarcomas, and cryosurgery) for the first time at this conference.

The presentation from Dr. Brohl about genome analysis on Ewing sarcoma was very difficult. We found some differences between Japan and US during the conference. For example, there are more liposarcoma patients than leiomyosarcoma patients in the US. Ion beam radiotherapy is in more advanced use in Japan.

Dr. Takahashi’s group had more patient cases in their presentations because the sarcoma patients came mostly to this group for help. We felt that the Japanese treatment results in surgery, local treatment, and the use of pazopanib were equal to those of US results. We got an impression that the US treatment methods did not differ a lot, but there were more clinical trials conducted in the US in chemotherapy area.

We eagerly hope that a deep international discussion on sarcoma study and treatment will be done and the best standard treatment method will soon be established for sarcoma patients. We NPO Cure Sarcoma will try our best to support the development of sarcoma treatments.

December 21, 2014 NPO Cure Sarcoma Hiroyuki Onishi, Chairman of the Board of Trustees