FundARC
The “Fundació Anna Rovira Codina – Stop Sarcoma”, with the acronym FundARC, is an independent, non-profit private entity set up to provide a socio-health response to sarcoma and other minority oncological diseases.
The main purpose of the Foundation is to promote scientific-medical and pharmaceutical research to find new treatments and diagnostic methods that allow to cure or extend the life expectancy of patients diagnosed with sarcoma, as well as to accompany them and improve their quality of life life during the course of the disease.
Origin of the Foundation
Anna Rovira, who gives her name to this foundation, was diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma at the age of 29. She was a completely healthy girl with no risk factors.
Her disease was not diagnosed until 8 months after suffering a pulmonary embolism caused by the tumor that was lodged in the abdominal vena cava. When his sarcoma was diagnosed it had already developed metastases, was in stage IV and was declared incurable.
The effectiveness of currently available treatments for advanced sarcoma is, in most cases, quite limited. Anna received three different lines of standard chemotherapy, but did not respond to any of them, suffering some of the toxic effects of these treatments.
The fourth treatment consisted of a targeted therapy, an oral anti-angiogenic agent, which produced an initial improvement in the tumor response. Unfortunately, she developed toxic hepatitis secondary to the drug which prevented her from continuing treatment. The disease again progressed aggressively and ended her life at the age of 30.
Who are we?
We are a group of Anna’s family and friends who have experienced her illness up close and have come together to help other Sarcoma patients who are going through the same situation. In response, we have set up a foundation to raise funds to finance research projects and other initiatives related to the diagnosis and treatment of Sarcoma.
