Therapy for Ewing’s Sarcoma: King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre Experience

Abstract

Forty-one patients with histologically confirmed diagnosis of Ewing's sarcoma were treated between the years 1976 and 1983. Thirty patients without metastasis at diagnosis were treated with a combined regimen including radiotherapy to the primary tumor site and chemotherapy including cyclophosphamide, vincristine, actinomycin D and/or adriamycin. Eighteen of the thirty patients subsequently developed either local progression or systemic metastases. The median duration of relapse-free intervals was twenty months. Eight patients had local regrowth of primary tumor. Six of these eight patients subsequently developed systemic metastasis on the average six months after local progression. The five-year survival rate of the patients without metastases at diagnosis was 47.5%. Eleven patients with metastases at diagnosis were frequently found to have lung and bone involvement. These were the most common sites of tumor metastases in patients receiving therapy as well. The median duration of survival from time of systemic metastases was about 12 months. Long-term survivors were rare in this group, indicating the need for early diagnosis and intensive therapy to achieve control of the primary tumor and long-term, recurrence-free