A trial looking at treatment for the Ewing sarcoma family of tumours (EURO-EWING 99)

The trial team found that:

This trial was open for people to join between 2000 and 2015. 

 

The research team have looked at the different parts of this trial separately:

We have information about all of these below.

 

Everyone taking part in this trial had chemotherapy to begin with. They then had an operation to remove as much of the cancer as possible, and more chemotherapy.

 

The treatment they had after this depended on how big their cancer was and how well the treatment so far had worked.

 

People whose treatment had worked well were put into 1 of these 2 chemotherapy treatment groups at random:

When this trial was done, doctors often used VAI. The research team wanted to see if it would be ok to use VAC instead.

 

People whose treatment so far had worked less well were put into 1 of these two chemotherapy treatment groups at random:

When this trial was done, doctors often used VAI. The research team wanted to see if BuMel worked better than VAI.

 

Some people also had radiotherapy after their operation, depending on their situation.

 

 

The research team looked at 856 people whose initial treatment had worked well. They were put into 1 of 2 groups at random:

The team looked at how many people’s cancer had come back or spread to another part of the body 3 years after treatment. They found it was similar in both groups:

They also looked at how many people had died 3 years after treatment, and found it was the same in both groups:

The number of people who had side effects was different for some things:

The research team concluded that it may be ok to use cyclophosphamide instead of ifosfamide as part of chemotherapy treatment for Ewing sarcoma family of tumours. They suggest more work is done to be sure, and that they monitor long term side effects.

 

The research team looked at 599 people who’d had surgery after chemotherapy. Of these:

They looked at how many people’s cancer had come back in the same part of the body. This is called local relapse. It was:

Sometimes sarcomas are partly, or completely, made up of dying tissue. This is called necrosis. The research team found that radiotherapy worked better for people whose cancer had complete necrosis. When they looked at how many of these people had a local relapse, it was:

They also looked at how many people’s cancer had spread to another part of the body and how many people had died. They found there wasn’t much difference between the two groups. 

 

The research team concluded that radiotherapy seems to help stop these cancers coming back in the same area. They recommend people have radiotherapy if they have chemotherapy and surgery but the surgeon was not able to remove all of the cancer. They suggest more trials are done to look at this in more detail.

 

The research team looked at the results for 240 people whose initial treatment had worked less well than they’d hoped. They were put into 1 of 2 groups at random:

The research team looked at how many people’s cancer had come back 3 years after treatment, and found it was:

And when they looked at how many people had died, they found it was:

More people who had BuMel had side effects than those who had VAI. Some side effects were mild or didn’t last long. But some were classed as severe. More people who had BuMel had severe side effects.

 

The most common side effects were:

The research team concluded that BuMel worked better for people whose initial treatment had worked less well, but it did cause more side effects. They recommend people think about making it part of standard treatment for this group of patients.

 

We have based this summary on information from the research team. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed ) and published in medical journals. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team who did the research. We have not analysed the data ourselves.