Rush has one of the Midwest’s largest volumes for bone and soft tissue sarcomas, offering comprehensive evaluation and treatment for adult and pediatric patients. The multidisciplinary team, which features orthopedic surgeons, medical oncologists, pediatric hematologist/oncologists, radiation oncologists, radiologists and pathologists, collaborates to create the optimal treatment protocol for each patient. The team’s expertise includes managing metastatic bone disease to maintain function, minimize bone loss and decrease pain. A key component of the program is the Limb Preservation Center at Rush, the only center of its kind in the region. Physicians at the center are leaders in the use of allografts for limb reconstruction as well as the development of state-of-the- art bone substitutes.

2011 Highlights

Expandable implants for children: Rush pioneered the use of an innovative expandable implant for pediatric patients with bone cancer. The device can be lengthened as the child grows without additional trips to the operating room, offering an important solution to one of the challenges of treating children with bone cancer — growth — and decreasing the need to perform amputations in this population.

A leader in tissue banking: Steven Gitelis, MD, orthopedic surgeon, is the current medical director of the Tissue Bank of Illinois, which is part of Gift of Hope, a not-for-profit organization that coordinates organ and tissue donation in Illinois and northwest Indiana. He also serves as a trustee on the board of Gift of Hope.

NIH-funded research: Rush is home to a thriving basic orthopedic research program. Currently, NIH-funded research is being performed by Carl Maki, PhD, who is examining how osteosarcoma cells become resistant to therapy and the mechanism by which the p53 tumor suppressor gene is lost in osteosarcoma.

New research organization: Steven Gitelis, MD, and Carl Maki, PhD, will head the cancer biology program, one of four newly organized research programs in the Rush University Cancer Center. The other three programs focus on clinical, behavioral and translational research; molecular signatures and cancer outcomes; and tumor immunology. The cancer biology program’s goal is to understand the basic molecular and cellular abnormalities in malignant cells, with special emphasis on bone tumors and metastasis to bone. The program focuses on the application of basic knowledge of the biology of bone and cartilage cells to the clinic through the conduct of innovative clinical trials in sarcoma and related cancers.

Multidisciplinary Team

Diagnostic radiologists:
John Meyer, MD; Anthony M. Zelazny, MD

Medical oncologist:
Marta Batus, MD

Orthopedic surgeons:
Steven Gitelis, MD; Walter Virkus, MD

Pathologists:
Jerome Loew, MD; Ira Miller, MD; Vijaya Reddy, MD

Pediatric hematologist/oncologists:
Paul Kent, MD; Allen Korenblit, MD

Pediatric physiatrist:
Laura Deon, MD

Radiation oncologists:
Ross Abrams, MD; Krystyna Kiel, MD

Surgical oncologists:
Steven Bines, MD; Howard Kaufman, MD

Sarcoma Conference

Wednesdays, 9 to 10 a.m.
Janet Wolter, MD, Clinical and
Educational Conference Room
1010 Professional Building

Clinical Trials

This past year, Rush participated in a multicenter, international, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of doxorubicin plus palifosfamide-tris versus doxorubicin plus placebo in patients with front-line metastatic soft tissue sarcoma. For more information about open clinical trials, visit www.rush.edu/cancerclinicaltrials. To enroll a patient in a clinical trial, call (312) 942-0600.

For more information about the sarcoma and soft tissue tumor program or to refer a patient for an initial visit or a second opinion, please call (312) CANCER-1 (226-2371).