The Kaposi's Sarcoma (KS) Working Group has implemented and completed several important studies that have provided new treatment options for patients with KS. The AMC KS Working Group collaborates with representatives of the NCI and the FDA to develop comprehensive, standardized evaluation procedures to evaluate KS response data and correlate these data with a patient's function (i.e. clinical benefit). These evaluation procedures have been used in advanced phase II and III AMC trials.
The current goals of the KS WG are to:
- Evaluate, both in the United States and international settings, the safety, side effects and effectiveness of potential treatment and preventive medicines that target factors involved in the development and progression of Kaposi's sarcoma.
- Determine which factors in the blood and tumor specimens (also known as biologic correlates) will help predict a patient's prognosis and response to treatment. Knowledge gained from this will be used to seek out and test new treatment strategies and help to select the most effective treatments for individual patients.
- Understand the different manifestations of KS and the needs of people living with KS and KS herpes virus (KSHV) infection, for example, KS that develops in the presence of successful HAART or that develops in resource-limited settings.