Advances in Osteosarcoma: Tumor Biology and Therapeutic Innovation
A special issue of Cells (ISSN 2073-4409). This special issue belongs to the section "Cellular Pathology".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 August 2026 | Viewed by 973
Editors
Interests: osteosarcoma; cell biology; cancer immunotherapy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Osteosarcoma, a rare and aggressive primary bone tumor, accounts for <1% of all new cancer diagnoses in the United States. Survival rates for patients with relapse or refractory metastatic disease have not changed for decades and remain <20%. The current standard of care, which includes high-dose multiagent chemotherapy and surgery, is often associated with substantial toxicities, such as cardiotoxicity, yet fails to improve therapeutic outcome. While immunotherapies are promising, current approaches have not provided clinical benefit. The minimal advantages of immunotherapies are primarily due to the highly immune suppressive tumor immune microenvironment that prevents immune cell infiltration and effector immune responses. This challenge is further compounded by tumor heterogeneity and genomic complexity, which together limit the feasibility of developing effective molecular targeted therapies.
This Special Issue will highlight recent advances and emerging strategies to understand, detect and overcome immune resistance in osteosarcoma. The aim is to bring together contributions spanning the full spectrum of OS research—including basic tumor biology and mechanisms of metastases, early diagnosis, immune modulation and novel translational therapeutic development. This collection will emphasize tumor immunology, immune engineering, biomarker discovery, and rational combination therapies designed to achieve durable anti-tumor responses.
Topics may include the following:
- Mechanisms of metastasis and tumor evolution.
- Novel biomarkers and circulating tumor DNA for early diagnosis.
- Molecular targets in osteosarcoma.
- Novel targets and approaches in immune-engineering to avoid immune suppression.
- Combinatorial immunotherapy appraoches (checkpoint blockade, oncolytic virus, chemotherapy).
- Translational and clinical advances toward next-generation immunotherapy for osteosarcoma.
- Toxicity associated with therapy (immune related adverse events and chemotherapy induced cardiotoxity).
Prof. Dr. Eugenie S. Kleinerman
Dr. Pradeep Shrestha
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- osteosarcoma
- immunotherapy
- biomarker
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