Treatment Option Overview
Patients should be evaluated by specialists from all disciplines (e.g., radiologist, chemotherapist, pathologist, surgical or orthopedic oncologist, and radiation oncologist) as early as possible. Appropriate imaging studies of the site should be obtained prior to biopsy. The surgical or orthopedic oncologist who will perform the definitive surgery should be involved prior to or during the biopsy so that the incision can be placed in an acceptable location. This is especially important if it is thought that the lesion can be totally excised or if a limb salvage procedure may be attempted. Biopsy should be from soft tissue as often as possible to avoid increasing the risk of fracture.[1] The radiation oncologist and pathologist should be consulted prior to biopsy/surgery in order to be sure that the incision will not compromise the radiation port and so that multiple types of tissue samples are obtained. It is important to obtain fresh tissue, whenever possible, for cytogenetics and molecular pathology.
The successful treatment of patients with Ewing sarcoma family of tumors (ESFT) requires systemic chemotherapy [2,3,4,5,6,7,8] in conjunction with either surgery or radiation therapy or both modalities for local tumor control.[9,10,11,12,13] In general, patients receive preoperative chemotherapy prior to instituting local control measures. In patients who undergo surgery, surgical margins and histologic response are considered in planning postoperative therapy. In the Euro-Ewing study (EURO-EWING-INTERGROUP-EE99), patients who receive radiation alone for local control are stratified by pretreatment tumor volume for postradiation therapy. Most patients with metastatic disease have a good initial response to preoperative chemotherapy; however, in most cases, the disease is only partially controlled or recurs.[14,15,16,17] Patients with lung as the sole metastatic site have a better prognosis than patients with metastases to bone and/or bone marrow. Adequate local control for metastatic sites, particularly bone metastases, may be an important issue.
Potential Roles for the Family Caregiver
Caregivers of cancer patients are expected to function broadly, providing direct care, assistance with activities of daily living, case management, emotional support, companionship, and medication supervision.[1] Caregivers of cancer patients generally undertake multifaceted responsibilities for tasks such as the following:[2] Administrative tasks (case management, management of insurance claims, bill payment). Instrumental tasks (accompanying the cancer patient to medical appointments;...
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Chemotherapy for Ewing Sarcoma
Multidrug chemotherapy for ESFT always includes vincristine, doxorubicin, ifosfamide, and etoposide. Most protocols use cyclophosphamide as well. Certain protocols incorporate dactinomycin. The mode of administration and dose intensity of cyclophosphamide within courses differs markedly between protocols. A European Intergroup Cooperative Ewing Sarcoma (EICES) trial suggested that 1.2 grams of cyclophosphamide produced a similar event-free survival (EFS) compared with 6 grams of ifosfamide, and identified a trend toward better EFS for patients with localized Ewing sarcoma when treatment included etoposide (GER-GPOH-EICESS-92).[18][Level of evidence: 1iiA] Protocols in the United States generally alternate courses of vincristine, cyclophosphamide, and doxorubicin with courses of ifosfamide/etoposide,[6] while European protocols generally combine vincristine, doxorubicin, and an alkylating agent with or without etoposide in a single treatment cycle.[8] Duration of primary chemotherapy ranges from 6 months to approximately 1 year.
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