Clinical outcomes and prognostic factors of Ewing sarcoma: A clinical analysis of 12 patients in Taiwan

BackgroundEwing sarcoma is extremely rare in people from East and Southeast Asia.MethodsThe records of 12 patients diagnosed with primary Ewing sarcoma and treated at our institution from 1997 to 2009 were retrospectively reviewed.ResultsThere were seven male and five female patients and their mean age at diagnosis was 22 years (range, 12–48 years). Two patients (16.7%) had distant metastasis at diagnosis. The primary tumor sites were the trunk in seven patients (58.3%) and the extremities in five patients (41.7%). Eleven patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by wide excision surgery, and then adjuvant chemotherapy. One patient received only chemotherapy without surgical intervention due to poor cardiac and pulmonary function. At a mean follow-up of 33 months, the 2-year overall survival rate (OS) was 45.5%. Distant metastasis was the only statistically significant prognostic factor of OS in our study. The 2-year OS rates of patients with lung metastasis and without lung metastasis were 0% and 42.9%, respectively (p = 0.021). The t(11;22)(q24:q12) translocation was present in all patients in our series.ConclusionWe confirmed that distant metastases is highly predictive of a poor outcome, and that the t(11;22)(q24:q12) translocation was present in all patients in our series.