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Oncology hashtag project leads to a sarcoma hashtag with rallying cry for more treatment options

Sarcoma accounts for 15 percent of childhood cancer cases but only about one percent of adult cases.

By Stephanie Baum on July 22, 2015 12:43 am

What do you get when you combine social media, an oncology hashtag project to provide better educational resources for patients and connect patients with physicians in this specialty and a patient population that sees few treatment options geared to them? The development of a new cancer community around sarcoma patients, #scmsm

Matthew Katz (aka @subatomicdoc) is a a radiation oncologist who founded Rad Nation, a community of radiation oncologists.

One of the ways #scmsm members have used the new handle is to amplify their push for more drug options designed specifically for sarcoma patients with an appreciation of the diverse variations on the rare condition. Although there are 50 different types of sarcoma, only one drug is designed for one of these subtypes but is used for the others and it was developed more than 30 years ago..

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About 15,000 new cases of sarcoma are diagnosed each year. Sarcoma accounts for 15 percent of childhood cancer cases but only about one percent of adult cases.

The fact that these hashtags include specialist physician insights along with voices from patients make it stand out from some of the patient communities I have seen on social media. A collaboration of patients and physicians could prove more effective at getting the ear of the pharmaceutical communities they address.

Although a dominant theme has been to make July national sarcoma month, there were other conversation topics.