[Ewing sarcoma]

Ewing sarcoma is the second most frequent primary bone cancer affecting children or young adults. Advances in molecular biology have revealed common chromosomal translocations such as EWS-FLI 1 among Ewing sarcoma and related diseases such as primitive neuroectodermal tumor (PNET), so these are considered as Ewing sarcoma family tumor (ESFT). Although fewer than 10% of patients with ESFT survived before establishment of modern multiagent chemotherapy, the multimodal therapeutic regimens including combination chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery can cure 60% of patients with localized disease, due to the collaborative research in European-American or the international trials. The standard chemotherapy for localized ESFT now comprises vincristine, actinomycin D, cyclophosphamide and doxorubicin (VACD) in Europe or vincristine, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, ifosfamide and etoposide (VDC-IE) in North America. Meanwhile, those with metastatic disease have a much worse outcome with an approximately 10-30% 5-year event-free survival rate. New American-European collaborative trials such as EURO-E.W.I.N.G.99 are in progress for further improvement of the cure rate in localized and metastatic ESFT. In Japan, Japan Ewing Sarcoma Study Group (JESS) phase II clinical trial for localized ESFT, and some clinical trials including new drugs are ongoing and waiting for results.