Is time of the essence? Delayed diagnosis of Ewing's sarcoma

Rarely in modern medicine are we able to observe the natural history of a patient with a sarcoma. This unusual case provides that opportunity. A CT scan was performed on the leg of a 15-year-old boy with a tender soft tissue mass on the lateral aspect of his left calf. Despite showing a lesion consistent with a sarcoma, neither the patient nor his family was informed. Almost a year and a half later, the patient returned and was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma. A staging work up showed no metastatic disease. After undergoing chemotherapy and a complete surgical resection of the tumour, the patient remains disease-free 10 years later, indicating that the biology of Ewing's sarcoma may be more important than time to diagnosis in determining outcome.