Ewing's sarcoma overview
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Ewing's sarcoma Microchapters |
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Ewing's sarcoma overview On the Web |
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American Roentgen Ray Society Images of Ewing's sarcoma overview |
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Risk calculators and risk factors for Ewing's sarcoma overview |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]; Assistant Editor(s)-In-Chief: Michael Maddaleni, B.S.
Overview
Ewing's sarcoma is the common name for primitive neuroectodermal tumor. It is a rare disease, and until recently, it had a very low long term survival rate. It is a small round-cell tumor in which cancer cells are found in the bone or in soft tissue (rarer). The most common areas in which it occurs are the pelvis, the femur, the humerus, and the ribs. James Ewing (1866-1943) first described the tumor, establishing that the disease was separate from lymphoma and other types of cancer known at that time. Ewing's sarcoma occurs most frequently in male teenagers.
Ewing's sarcoma is the result of a translocation between chromosomes 11 and 22, which fuses the EWS gene of chromosome 22 to the FLI1 gene of chromosome 11.