Sarcomas are rare tumours with a poor prognosis, but due to their relatively rare occurrence, very little research is performed on these tumours. Since it is not possible to recruit enough patients to do a comprehensive study, we want to look for an in vivo model with patient-specific material that can be used as a lab avatar of the original tumour. 

For this study, we want to use the chicken embryo chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) model. This model is commonly used to study tumour growth and metastasis. The model lends itself well to culturing tumour tissue derived from patients. In this way, we create tumour avatars in the lab. With this study, we want to find out how we can use the CAM model to find out which medicinal cancer treatments work best in the tumour avatar. In addition, we will also investigate whether tumour growth and possible metastasis in the model has a predictive value for in vivo cancer progression. This will be done by cutting out tissue from clinic small animals and growing them on the CAM model. After intravenous administration of various chemotherapeutics, tumour growth, necrosis and presence/absence of metastasis will be examined via real-time imaging, histological analysis and quantitative PCR. 

As a proof of principle, this study will be performed on canine sarcomas. In particular, osteosarcomas and haemangiosarcomas are more frequent in dogs than in humans and will be used as models for humans.