The first European interdisciplinary ewing sarcoma research summit.

The European Network for Cancer Research in Children and Adolescents (ENCCA) provides an interaction platform for stakeholders in research and care of children with cancer. Among ENCCA aims is the establishment of biology-based prioritization mechanisms for the selection of innovative targets, drugs, and prognostic markers for validation in clinical trials. Specifically for sarcomas, there is a burning need for novel treatment options since current chemotherapeutic treatment protocols have met their limits. This is most obvious for metastatic Ewing sarcoma, where long term survival rates are still below 20%. Despite significant progress in our understanding of Ewing sarcoma biology, clinical translation of promising laboratory results has not taken place due to fragmentation of research and lack of an institutionalized discussion forum. To fill this gap, ENCCA assembled 30 European expert scientists and 5 North American opinion leaders in December 2011 to exchange and critically discuss the state of the art in Ewing sarcoma research and latest results from the bench, and to propose biological studies and novel promising therapeutics for the upcoming European EWING2008 and EWING2012 clinical trials.