Introduction
It must be remembered that Ewing’s sarcoma is a bone cancer, which is also labeled “Ewing’s tumor”. It occurs in the younger age group of 10 to 20 years. Certainly, it occurs more frequently in males than in females and the physician diagnoses this in the long bones of the arms or legs.
Symptoms
To clarify, symptoms consist mainly of bone pain. By all means, there may be a lump on the bone that the physician can feel, but did not expect before the examination.
Diagnostic tests
It must be remembered that X-rays are not showing the full extend of the tumor.Instead CT and MRI scans are important to appreciate the full extent of the disease. Accordingly, often the disease process involves the whole bone. To explain, the most common finding by these tests is that of lytic destruction. As some other benign and cancerous conditions can confuse the clinical picture, the final diagnostic test is to do the diagnostic bone biopsy.
Treatment
A combination of chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy is in usage to treat this bone tumor. This combined approach leads to cancer survival rate of more than 60% for a localized Ewing’s sarcoma at the time of initial diagnosis. More advanced stages have a less favorable outcome.
References
1. Cancer: Principles &Practice of Oncology. 4th edition. Edited by Vincent T. DeVita, Jr. et al. Lippincott, Philadelphia,PA, 1993. Chapter on Sarcomas of the soft tissues and bone.
2. Cancer: Principles&Practice of Oncology. 5th edition, volume 2. Edited by Vincent T. DeVita, Jr. et al. Lippincott-Raven Publ., Philadelphia,PA, 1997. Chapter on Sarcomas of the soft tissues and bone.
3. Conn’s Current Therapy 2004, 56th ed., Copyright © 2004 Elsevier
4. Ferri: Ferri’s Clinical Advisor: Instant Diagnosis and Treatment, 2004 ed., Copyright © 2004 Mosby, Inc
5. Suzanne Somers: “Breakthrough” Eight Steps to Wellness– Life-altering Secrets from Today’s Cutting-edge Doctors”, Crown Publishers, 2008
