What we do
About our project
Background information
Carcinosarcomas of the uterus (CSU) are rare and highly aggressive malignancy that contain both malignant sarcomatous and carcinomatous element. The survival of women with advanced uterine carcinosarcoma carcinosarcoma is worse than survival of endometrioid or high-grade serous histologies. The incidence in the region South-West Netherlands is around 10 per year. Therapy is multimodal; consisting of surgery and/or chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. Clear evidence to establish consensus guidelines for treatment - let alone evidence based guidelines - is lacking, because CSU are often excluded from major clinical studies on the effects of treatment. Therefore more research is very much needed, given that these patients have a poor prognosis.
Execution of the project
In 2016 we started a prospective registration study of all patients treated for CSU at the Erasmus MC: the Carcinosarcoma of the Uterus Study (CUS). We aim to disclose risk factors, treatment characteristics and quality-of-life (QoL) aspects. In addition in 2022 we started the CUS II study, in order to perform molecular analysis on a diverse set of samples (tumor tissue, liquid biopsies and pap smears) to find new molecular markers in CSU.
Overall aim
With this study we aim to give insights in to the clinical and molecular characteristics of CSU and through this improve the prognosis of patients with CSU.
Our research focus
Prospective observational study
Clinical characteristics and survival of patients with CSU at our clinic will be reported. Patients included in the studies are asked to fill in standardized health-related QoL questionnaires. This is important, as patients with CSU have an poor prognosis even after extensive treatment.
Molecular analysis
Molecular characteristics of a tumor are the cornerstone of the biology of cancer. By analyzing blood and tissue of patients with CSU we aim to gain more insight in molecular alterations in CSU by performing molecular analysis on tissue and blood of patients with CSU and find (bio)markers which can be linked to the clinical outcome or targets for adjuvant therapy
Collaborations
Collaboration within the Erasmus MC
- Department of Pathology
- Department of Oncology
- Department of Radiotherapy
- Department of Development Biology
Collaboration outside of the Erasmus MC
- Methylomics, Rijswijk
Our team
- Heleen van Beekhuizen, gynaecological oncologist
contact - Eveline Pham, MD PhD-candidate
- Caroline van den Berg, AIOS gynaecology
contact - Marianne Maliepaard, Research coordinator
contact - Ingrid Boere, medical oncologist
contact - Jan Willem Mens, radiation oncologist
contact - Floris Groenendijk, gynaecopathologist / Clinical Scientist in Molecular Pathology
contact - Joost Gribnau, department of Developmental Biology
