A trial looking at treatment for the Ewing sarcoma family of tumours (Euro Ewing 2012)

The research team found that VDC/IE worked better for Ewing sarcoma than VIDE.

VDC/IE is vincristine, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, ifosfamide and etoposide. 

VIDE is vincristine, ifosfamide, doxorubicin and etoposide.

Trial design
This trial was for children and adults up to 50 years old who had a Ewing sarcoma .

The people taking part were put into 1 of 2 treatments groups at random. One group had VIDE treatment. The other group had VDC/IE treatment. 

After that, they had an operation to remove the sarcoma. Some people also had radiotherapy or more chemotherapy. The treatment they had depended on how well the first course of treatment had worked. 

Some people also had a drug called zoledronic acid as part of this trial, and some didn’t. Who had this drug was decided at random. We plan to add the results for this part of the trial when they are available. 

Results
A total of 640 people from 10 different countries joined this trial. There were:

• 320 people in the VIDE group
• 320 people in the VDC/IE group

Euro Ewing 2012 trial randomisation diagram

The research team looked at how many people’s cancer had not come back or got worse in the 3 years after joining the trial. They found it was:

• just over than 6 out of 10 people (61%) of those who had VIDE
• just under 7 out of 10 people (67%) of those who had VDC/IE

Euro Ewing 2012 trial - Bar chart showing how many people’s cancer had not come back or got worse in the 3 years after joining the study

They also looked at how many people were living 3 years after joining the trial. They and found it was:

• more than 7 out of 10 people (74%) of those who had VIDE
• more than 8 out of 10 people (82%) of those who had VDC/IE

Euro Ewing 2012 trial - Bar chart showing how many people were living 3 years after joining the study

Side effects
Most people taking part had at least 1 side effect from treatment. Some were mild or didn’t last long. But many people had at least 1 side effect that was more severe. 

The most common of the more severe side effects for both treatment groups were:

• a drop in white blood cells and high temperature (febrile neutropenia)
• a drop in red blood cells (anaemia)
• sore mouth (mucositis)
• tummy (abdominal) pain
• feeling sick
• constipation

More people in the VIDE group had a drop in white blood cells and a temperature. The other side effects affected a similar number of people in both groups. 

There is information about side effects in our Cancer drugs section.

Conclusion
The research team concluded that VDC/IE treatment was better than VIDE for Ewing sarcoma. They also found that it didn’t cause any more side effects than VIDE.

They suggest that VDC/IE is used as a standard treatment for Ewing sarcoma.

More detailed information
There is more information about this research in the reference below. 

Please note, the article in the link below is not in plain English. It has been written for healthcare professionals and researchers.

Comparison of two chemotherapy regimens in patients with newly diagnosed Ewing sarcoma (EE2012): an open-label, randomised, phase 3 trial
B Brennan and others
The Lancet, 2022. Volume 400, issue 10362, pages 1513 – 1521.

Where this information comes from    
We have based this summary on information from the research team. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed ) but may not have been published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the research team. We have not analysed the data ourselves.