Damon Reed, M.D.
2024 President of CTOS
I am looking forward to a wonderful 2024 for CTOS! I attended my first meeting in 2009, had an opportunity to organize the 2017 meeting, and have enjoyed this organization and its members throughout my entire career. CTOS will continue to be the foremost organization for multidisciplinary sarcoma work and has grown so much over the years.
Those that know me understand that I approach sarcomas as they are: complex systems that adapt to therapies. Sarcomas evolve. This means that chemotherapy that initially shrinks a tumor and relieves symptoms can often lose its effectiveness over time as it selects for resistant cancer cells. Excellent local control modalities are essential for resolving most visible tumors. Serial radiologic assessments and pathologic evaluations are increasingly appreciated sources of data to understand sarcoma dynamics. I hope that we spend the year appreciating and addressing sarcoma heterogeneity, this year’s theme, and develop therapies that anticipate and address resistance.
We will continue to welcome more multidisciplinary approaches to cure sarcomas in 2024. I look forward to continuing to learn from so many of you as I strive to design better evolutionary inspired clinical trials for common pediatric and AYA sarcomas like rhabdomyosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma and osteosarcoma. These trials build on the successes of the past and include response based therapy changes and correlative biology to understand and model cancer resistance. Thank you for your continued contributions to CTOS and I look forward to seeing you in San Diego!