Abstract
Ewing's sarcoma is a poorly characterized malignant tumor with a relatively
uniform histologic appearance, made up of densely packed small cells with round
to oval nuclei, without distinct cell borders and without any structural
differentiation. Often the diagnosis has to be made by exclusion. Recently, it
has been made possible to identify characteristic chromosomal rearrangements
associated with certain solid tumors. More than 85% of Ewing's sarcoma and
peripheral neuroectodermal tumor present a specific t(11;22)(q24;q12) balanced
translocation, resulting in the production of a novel chimerical EWS/FLI-1
message. Using oligonucleotide primers derived from EWS and FLI-1 complementary
DNAs, we were able to use reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction
(RT-PCR) as a diagnostic tool. The described nested RT-PCR method as another
supportive diagnostic method enables pathologists to differentiate small blue
cell tumors not only to make correct diagnosis but also to investigate
retrospective archival tumor samples, using formalin fixed paraffin embedded
tissue as a source of RNA.