Remember that for sarcomas, we recommend being treated by a sarcoma expert. These physicians are most likely to know what treatment options, including clinical trials, are available.
You may want to ask your provider the following questions:
- Why do you think this treatment would work for my type of sarcoma?
- How many people with this sarcoma have you treated?
- Did the other people have a similar subtype, stage, and location?
- What were the results for those people?
- Has this treatment been tested in clinical trials?
- If there are results for this sarcoma or related cancers, what are the results?
- Do the results of the clinical trials show this treatment is relatively safe?
- Do the results of the trials show that the treatment is effective?
- Are the results published in technical journals – NOT just the popular press?
- How many people were in these studies?
- Were the patients treated with any other treatments?
- Can the doctor or clinic send me copies of the results?
- How does the treatment work? (Make sure the explanation makes sense. You may have to do some homework here!)
- What is the goal of the treatment and how is its efficacy measured (for example, is survival measured in weeks, months, or years)?
- How do they measure success for treatments where, say, the goal of treatment might be to strengthen the immune system?
- What are the risks of the treatment?
- What are the side effects, short- and long-term?
- Can they provide any information showing the percentage of patients who develop these side effects?
- If the drugs are complementary medicines used during treatment, how will they interact with traditional treatment drugs? Are there studies that show there will not be adverse interactions?
- Anything else you can think of.
Find a sarcoma expert.
We offer a list of centers around the world to help you find one in your area.