title: Targets for cancer therapy in childhood sarcomas.
abstract: Development of chemotherapeutic treatment modalities resulted in a dramatic increase in the survival of children with many types of cancer. Still, in case of some pediatric cancer entities including rhabdomyosarcoma, osteosarcoma and Ewing's sarcoma, survival of patients remains dismal and novel treatment approaches are urgently needed. Therefore, based on the concept of targeted therapy, numerous potential targets for the treatment of these cancers have been evaluated pre-clinically or in some cases even clinically during the last decade. This review gives an overview over many different potential therapeutic targets for treatment of these childhood sarcomas, including receptor tyrosine kinases, intracellular signaling molecules, cell cycle and apoptosis regulators, proteasome, hsp90, histone deacetylases, angiogenesis regulators and sarcoma specific fusion proteins. The large number of potential therapeutic targets suggests that improved comparability of pre-clinical models might be necessary to prioritize the most effective ones for future clinical trials.
authors.affiliation: University Children's Hospital, Department of Oncology, Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wachtel
authors.forename: Beat W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Schäfer
mesh_terms: D020533:Angiogenesis Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000187:drug effects; D002648:Child; D018844:Cyclin-Dependent Kinases / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors; D018841:HSP90 Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors; D056572:Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D061988:Proteasome Inhibitors; D047428:Protein Kinase Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D020794:Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors; D012509:Sarcoma / Q000188:drug therapy*
chemical_list: D020533:Angiogenesis Inhibitors; D018841:HSP90 Heat-Shock Proteins; D056572:Histone Deacetylase Inhibitors; D061988:Proteasome Inhibitors; D047428:Protein Kinase Inhibitors; D020794:Receptor Protein-Tyrosine Kinases; D018844:Cyclin-Dependent Kinases