Ewing Sarcoma Treatment
Sheba Medical Center features a multidisciplinary team of specialists with vast experience in treating Ewing sarcoma. We work together to ensure that each patient benefits from cutting-edge personalized treatment plans built by our medical oncologists, hematologists, radiation oncologists, pathologists, and other specialists.
Sheba’s holistic approach ensures that you and your child will have access to not only the top-tier specialists in oncology, but to an experienced and caring team of nurses, psychologists, social workers, and nutritionists as well.
Your child’s treatment plan will depend on many factors including:
- Age of the patient
- Size and location of the tumor
- Whether cancer has spread
- Whether the tumor has caused broken bones
- LDH level in the blood
- Genetic changes in the cancer cells
- Whether the patient has had treatment for a different cancer
- Whether cancer has recurred
Once these factors are assessed, our specialists will build an action plan that may include the following treatments offered at Sheba:
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Based on the factors above, our team of oncologists, hematologists, hematopathologists, and radiation oncologists will build an action plan that may include the following treatments offered at Sheba:
Chemotherapy
The treatment team at Sheba will closely assess your child’s case to determine which chemotherapy drug — or combination of drugs — will be most effective. In Ewing sarcoma treatment, patients will usually receive at least 9 weeks of chemo in a few cycles before radiation or surgery.
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Targeted Therapy
Targeted therapy drugs work differently from chemotherapy drugs because they are made to identify and attack specific cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone. In some cases, they are more effective than chemotherapy drugs and they often have different side effects.
There are many different kinds of targeted drugs, but they’re all manufactured to seek out the changes that make cancer cells different from healthy cells. They may then kill these cells by blocking chemical signals that tell them to grow; changing proteins within the cells so that they die; preventing new blood vessels from forming that would otherwise feed cancer cells; triggering the immune system to kill cancer cells; or sending toxins to the cancer cells to kill them.
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Radiation Therapy
Radiation therapy uses high doses of radiation to kill cancer cells. Ewing sarcoma tumors are especially sensitive to radiation, and so this type of treatment is often used on Ewing tumors. Typically, radiation therapy is used in conjunction with chemotherapy.
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Surgery
In the majority of Ewing sarcoma cases, surgery is an important part of treatment. It may be performed to obtain a biopsy sample and to remove the tumor. The goal of surgery is to remove the whole tumor, and doctors may remove some tissue around the tumor as well just to be sure.
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Bone Marrow Transplant / Stem Cell Transplant
A major concern of high-dose chemotherapy is the damaging effects that it has on stem cells in the bone marrow. In order to get around this problem, doctors may plan for a stem cell transplant following high-dose chemotherapy.
When the patient’s own stem cells are used in the transplant, they must be removed and frozen before chemotherapy. Once treatment with chemo is completed, the stem cells are thawed and returned through a blood transfusion. After the transplant, the new cells multiply and create healthy bone marrow.
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