Spinal and paraspinal Ewing tumors

To perform a review of the 40-year University of Florida experience treating spinal and paraspinal Ewing tumors.

A total of 27 patients were treated between 1965 and 2007. For local management, 21 patients were treated with radiotherapy (RT) alone and 6 with surgery plus RT. All patients with metastatic disease were treated with RT alone. The risk profiles of each group were otherwise similar. The median age was 17 years, and the most frequent subsite was the sacral spine (n = 9). The median potential follow-up was 16 years.

The 5-year actuarial overall survival, cause-specific survival, and local control rate was 62%, 62%, and 90%, respectively. For the nonmetastatic subset (n = 22), the 5-year overall survival, cause-specific survival, and local control rate was 71%, 71%, and 89%, respectively. The local control rate was 84% for patients treated with RT alone vs. 100% for those treated with surgery plus RT. Patients who were >14 years old and those who were treated with intensive therapy demonstrated superior local control. Of 9 patients in our series with Frankel C or greater neurologic deficits at presentation, 7 experienced a full recovery with treatment. Of the 27 patients, 37% experienced Common Toxicity Criteria Grade 3 or greater toxicity, including 2 deaths from sepsis.

Aggressive management of spinal and paraspinal Ewing tumors with RT with or without surgery results in high toxicity but excellent local control and neurologic outcomes. Efforts should be focused on identifying disease amenable to combined modality local therapy and improving RT techniques.