High dose therapy for primary metastatic and relapsed Ewing tumours

Background: Patients (pts) with primary metastatic Ewing tumours (ET) have a poor prognosis for event free survival (EFS) compared to pts with localis ed disease. Following relapse the prognosis is extremely poor. Therefore th ese primary metastatic and relapsed pts were piloted for high dose therapy (HDT) for the last years. Patients and methods: Between April 1983 and May 1997, 131 ET pts who under went HDT were registered in the German CESS/EICESS office: 79 pts with prim ary metastases and 52 pts with relapsed tumours. After induction therapy, c onsisting of chemotherapy and local therapy, pts received high dose regimen s, mainly based on melphalan and/or etoposide (92%). Stem cell rescue was a pplied from allogeneic bone marrow (n = 13), autologous bone marrow (n = 17 ), or peripheral blood stem cells (n = 95). The date of analysis was Septem ber 1(st), 1998. Outcome was calculated by Kaplan-Meier-analyses. Results: The median time under study since high dose therapy was 3.7 years. 35/131 pts (26.7%) were in continuous complete remission, 80/131 pts (61.1 %) had relapsed or progressed, 11/131 pts (8.4%) died of complications and 5/131 pts (3.8%) presented with secondary malignancies. For the total group of primary metastatic pts, EFS five years after diagnosis was 19% for pts with HDT and 27% for those without (p = 0.9209). The subgroup of pts with p rimary lung and bone metastases seemed to benefit from HDT (EFS five years after diagnosis: 34% versus 5%, p = 0.0001). Outcome of pts with an early E T relapse ( < 2 years) was also improved by HDT (EFS four years after relap se: 17% versus 2%, p = 0.0001). Conclusions: The total group of primary metastatic ET pts showed no obvious benefit from HDT, based on melphalan and/or etoposide. Pts with metastases to multiple organ systems, and early relapse seemed to benefit from HDT. T he value of HDT should be assessed in prospective clinical trials.