Did you know?

Osteosarcoma is an aggressive cancer and the most common type of bone tumour in adolescents, with an incidence in the USA of 8.7 per million people. The most common fatal complication of osteosarcoma is the spread of the cancer to the lungs, which affects 30-40% of patients. The current chemotherapy treatment available for osteosarcoma is one of the harshest and has largely remained unchanged over the last two decades. Unfortunately, little is known about the cause of this devastating cancer and its biology, or about the reason why some patients develop metastases and others do not. The greatest challenges in the treatment of osteosarcoma remain the identification, at the time of diagnosis, of patients that have the potential to metastasise, and the identification of new therapeutic targets to prevent and treat metastasis.

The most common fatal complication of osteosarcoma is the spread of the cancer to the lungs, which affects 30-40% of patients.

Diamantina's research into osteosarcoma

Associate Professor Nicholas Saunders and his colleagues in the Epithelial Pathobiology Group have looked for genes that may play a key role in osteosarcoma metastasis. They measured the expression of more than 40,000 human genes in tumour biopsies collected routinely from osteosarcoma patients at the time of diagnosis, and compared it to non-cancerous bone samples. They identified a gene, ACP5, which is expressed by osteoclasts, the cells involved in breaking down bone. They showed that those patients who would go on to develop metastases could be identified by the loss of osteoclasts at their site of the bone tumour. The loss of osteoclasts was able to predict metastatic potential with 93% accuracy.

Their continuing research will determine if the loss of osteoclasts in osteosarcoma actually contributes to the spread of the cancer to the lungs. Their ultimate aim is to target the loss of osteoclasts in order to prevent pulmonary metastases.

More information

For more detailed information about the research that is being done in Epithelial Pathobiology Group, click on the link.

For more information about osteosarcoma, we recommend you visit the National Cancer Institute (USA)  or the American Cancer Society websites.