Dr. Peter Ferguson, Orthopaedic Oncologist in Mount Sinai Hospital’s Sarcoma Program, has a personal reason for specializing in the treatment of sarcoma. When he was 17, he lost his best friend to the disease. Sarcoma refers to cancers of the connective tissue, such as bone, cartilage and fat. At one time, 95 per cent of people with bone sarcoma died, and almost all required amputation.

“Now, it has a cure rate of 80 per cent, and 90 per cent of our patients are spared amputation,” says Dr. Ferguson. “It’s a turnaround in prognosis that is rivalled by very few other cancers.”

Mount Sinai’s Sarcoma Program, the largest of its kind in Canada, treats patients from across the country – and even from the Caribbean - for tumours of the musculoskeletal system. The program also treats some of the most complex cases in the country. In February 2009, Accreditation Canada surveyors named the Sarcoma Program as one of the Hospital’s three leading practices.

“The interdisciplinary team management is very clear,” said Dr. James Robblee, the lead surveyor during Mount Sinai’s Accreditation process, during an Accreditation wrap-up session for Hospital staff. “It’s just an excellent, excellent team working in your operating room – patients are extremely well looked-after.”

The program has a dedicated health-care team that includes a physician group, nursing staff, physiotherapist, social worker and occupational therapist. The program includes four orthopaedic oncologists: Dr. Ferguson, Dr. Benjamin Deheshi, Dr. Robert Bell and Head of the program Dr. Jay Wunder, Surgeon-In-Chief and Head, Division of Orthopaedic Surgery, pictured above. Dr. Wunder is also the Rubinoff-Gross Chair in Orthopaedic Oncology and the Leadership Sinai Chair in Surgery.

The program’s holistic approach, Dr. Ferguson says, allows patients to become familiar with staff, surgeons and medical oncologists while receiving care as inpatients on the floor or as outpatients during clinic visits. “It allows our patients a continuity of care they might not receive elsewhere,” he says.