Two teenage patients, thirty years apart, changed how bone sarcomas are treated. In 1890, seventeen-year-old Bessie Dashiell saw New York surgeon William Coley with a painful hand. Despite an amputation, she died of metastatic cancer ten weeks later. Coley’s search for a better answer led him to Coley’s toxin, a bacterial treatment now recognised as an early form of immunotherapy.

In 1921, pathologist James Ewing treated a fourteen-year-old girl with a wrist tumour he believed was osteosarcoma. Coley’s toxin failed. Radiotherapy, tried next, worked, even though osteosarcoma is classically radiotherapy-resistant. The tumour turned out to be a different disease entirely, now known as Ewing sarcoma, accounting for around 15 percent of bone sarcomas.

Dr Travis Brown traces both stories in detail, then turns to two guests for the clinical picture in 2026.

Dr Liz Connolly, medical oncologist at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and oncology research fellow at ProCan Children’s Medical Research Institute, covers staging (localised versus advanced), chemotherapy regimens for osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma, targeted therapies, and why immunotherapy has so far shown limited benefit in these cancers. She also discusses five-year survival, which sits around 70 percent for localised osteosarcoma or Ewing sarcoma, and why chondrosarcoma remains difficult to treat with drugs.

Professor Angela Hong, clinical professor at the University of Sydney and radiation oncologist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, explains why Ewing sarcoma responds so well to radiotherapy while osteosarcoma and chondrosarcoma do not, how multidisciplinary teams decide between surgery and radiotherapy, current dosing and an active Australian phase III trial, and why early referral to a sarcoma centre matters regardless of where a patient lives.

What to listen for: the diagnostic overlap between early bone sarcoma symptoms and everyday musculoskeletal complaints, and what that means for when to consider imaging and referral.

This is the story of Bone Sarcoma Part 2. Find Part 1 here.

Useful links:

Australia and New Zealand Sarcoma Association: https://sarcoma.org.au/

Find a sarcoma specialist: https://sarcoma.org.au/pages/about-sarcoma/find-a-sarcoma-specialist

Sarcoma guidelines: https://sarcoma.org.au/pages/sarcoma-guidelines

Seeking a second opinion: https://sarcoma.org.au/pages/about-sarcoma/seeking-second-opinion

Useful patient information: https://sarcoma.org.au/pages/about-sarcoma/patient-and-carer-sarcoma-information

Our Special Guests:

Dr Liz Connolly is a medical oncologist who specialises in treating and researching sarcomas

Professor Angela Hong is a radiation oncologist and clinical professor at the University of Sydney

Listen:

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