Along with almost 1,300 participants and community supporters, the Paula Takacs Foundation for Sarcoma Research raised north of $200,000 through the annual Sarcoma Stomp, held on April 28. The organization’s signature fundraising event provides significant funding to Levine Cancer Institute’s sarcoma research program, a partnership that began in 2012, as well as to Levine Children’s Hospital. Funds raised by the Foundation have helped launch new clinical research trials and two genetic profiling studies to improve treatment for sarcoma in both adult and pediatric patients.

The 5-year survival rate of people with soft tissue sarcoma is 50%, a statistic that has not changed in decades.

Sarcoma is curable by surgery about 20% of the time, or by surgery with chemotherapy and/or radiation 30% of the time – yet today, nearly half of the time the disease remains totally resistant to all of these approaches.

With support from the Paula Takacs Foundation, Levine Cancer Institute is now offering novel clinical trials for patients with soft tissue sarcomas.