Precision medicine, a long-sought mirage, is finally entering clinical practice in Oncology. The advent of personalized treatments on the basis of molecular and genetic tumour characterization, if not already tailored for individual patients, is already being applied to increasingly narrowed-down groups of molecularly-defined tumour types.

Therefore, translational research in Oncology should rely on patient-relevant platforms and models, which should be built with a tight connection between the clinic and the laboratory. For rare tumours, this is even more urgent, given the peculiarities of each specific tumour type and the very limited number of affected patients, resulting in little availability of primary samples for translational research and the consequent need to maximize the molecular and translational data which can be derived from each single patient/sample. Hence, the need for ever-increasing molecular characterizations and the concomitant limited availability of specimens, mandates innovative solutions for functional preclinical models and translational research in the field of rare cancers.

This Research Topic aims to explore currently available disease models and platforms for translational oncology in rare cancers, ranging from models for systemic treatment strategies to multimodality treatment models, combining both radiation oncology and pharmacological treatment strategies. A dedicated focus will be placed on models aiming at accurately recapitulating the original patients' tumour sample characteristics and platforms informed by clinical data, correlating laboratory findings to individual patients' characteristics.

This Research Topic accepts all the article types listed in the journal website. The following manuscript types are particularly welcome:

- Original research
- Commentaries
- Brief Communications
- Case reports (only if with translational aspects)

Authors who intend to submit their manuscript should review the section scope prior to submission.
Specifically, Authors who intend to submit a Review article (Mini Review, Systematic Review, Review, Policy and Practice Reviews) need to contact the Topic Editors prior their submission.

Are you interested in contributing a manuscript to this Research Topic?

Translational Oncology for Rare Cancers: Bridging the Bench to Bedside Gap with Innovative Solutions and Patient-Relevant Platforms