Ewing's sarcoma is the second most common bone tumour in children and young people and if localised can be cured in almost 2/3 of our patients. Unfortunately, the prognosis of patients in whom the disease has spread from its original site to other sites in the body is grim. Only 3 out of 10 patients with tumour spread (metastases) to the lungs can be cured. Even worse, only about 1 out of 10 patients with tumour spread to other bones will survive long-term. This difference in the survival of patients with tumour spread to the lungs as compared with tumour spread to other bones suggests that the tumour cells that cause spread to these organs differ. We have established a model to study the spread of human Ewing's sarcoma cells and are now in the process of isolating cells that cause tumour growth in the lungs or in the bones. Those cells will be studied with modern methods that allow global analysis of all genes switched on in these cells (gene expression arrays). This approach will enable us to find genes that differ between the cells that cause tumour growth in the lungs or in the bone and, by this way, we will be able to identify genes that are involved in directing cells to the different organs. The overall goal of this project is to understand the mechanisms that underlie tumour spread to the different organs (namely lungs and bone). Understanding those mechanisms will hopefully allow us to develop more specific therapies for patients with advanced stage Ewing's sarcoma in the future.

Professor Josef Vormoor, Northern Institute for Cancer Research, Newcastle University