Refractory/Recurrent
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Background Information
Some patients with Ewing's sarcoma have
stem cell transplantation or a stem
cell rescue. A stem cell rescue/transplant allows a patient to be
treated with high doses of drugs, radiation, or both. The high doses destroy
both cancer cells and normal blood cells in the bone marrow. Later, the
patient receives healthy stem cells through a tube that is placed in a large
vein in the neck or chest area. New blood cells develop from the
transplanted stem cells.
The stem cells can either have been harvested
from the individual (autologous) or for
someone else (allogeneic). The stem
cells can come from the bone marrow if is it cancer-free or the
blood using a process called
apheresis which is similar to
donating blood. See,
Autologous Stem Cell Transplants: A Handbook for
Patients and the
Bone Marrow Transplantation and Peripheral Blood Stem
Cell Transplantation: Questions and Answers webpage on the
National Cancer Institute's website.
Research Results
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2003
abstract comparing two different
ways to do stem cell rescue on Ewing's sarcoma (with and without total
body irradiation)
-
2001
abstract presenting bad results
with stem cell reconstitution for Ewing's sarcoma at Memorial Sloan
Kettering Cancer Center. The chemotherapy agents used were melphalan or
thiotepa/carboplatin; all of the patients had metastatic disease to the
bone or bone marrow.
-
2001
abstract on using topotecan,
thiotepa, and carboplatin with a stem cell rescue; most (18/21) of the
patients were in complete remission before the procedure. Event-free
survivors include 1/3 Ewing's sarcoma. The work was done at Memorial
Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC.
-
2000
abstract discussing somewhat okay
results with stem cell rescue using radiotherapy for Ewing's in
Seattle: 3/30 toxicity-related deaths; 8/30 developed recurrent
disease; 6/30 survive relapse-free for 66
months. (The numbers might be off by 1.)
-
2000
abstract comparing patients treated
with total body radiation, HDT with melphalan, etoposide +/-
carboplatin. 9/36 are in CR; 9/36 died
from treatment-related toxicity; 18/36 died from the disease.
-
1997
abstract discussing stem cell
rescue done after high dose therapy of busulphan and melphalan. 11 of
the 18 patients had metastatic disease at presentation; in the medial
follow-up of 2 years, there were 13 surviving patients, including 6 of
metastatic disease
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