Ewing's sarcoma: a & # 039; rare & # 039; cancer and with a difficult prognosis, this is the disease suffered by Álex Lequio

Yesterday we knew the sad news: Álex Lequio passed away after a long and complicated fight against cancer. This morning his mother, Ana Obregón, published a photograph with her son in which he expressed his first words. Together with her, we could read "My life was extinguished", a most emotional farewell that only shows the bad moment the actress is going through. Although she was not the only one who has taken the networks for her last goodbye: Celia, Álex Lequio's cousin also wrote an endearing message on Instagram and her brother, Clemente, also expressed his pain on social networks yesterday.

Although neither Alex Lequio nor Ana herself have ever clarified what type of cancer she suffered, it has been Laura Fa in the program 'Sálvame' who has made reference for the first time to the illness of the young person: Ewing's sarcoma, a rare and more widespread type of tumor among children and adolescents.

Despite the fact that Álex himself has always been very open when talking about his illness (he even referred to his medical check-ups as "visits to the ITV"), becoming an example of improvement and public struggle, he has never spoken openly about the tumor that he suffered, perhaps, because the medical prognoses of this type of cancer are not usually favorable in adults, and silence would therefore prevent the media explosion on his state of health.

The Ewing's sarcoma It is a type of cancer known as 'rare' that "occurs in the bones or in the white tissue around the bones and that usually begins in the bones of the pelvis or leg, but can occur in any bone," he explains. Mayo Clinic from your online platform.

What are the symptoms?

Symptoms range from pain, swelling, and tenderness in and around the affected area, to bone pain, extreme tiredness, fever, and weight loss. Symptoms that would match the statements you made Ana Obregón in the first interview in which he spoke of his son's illness. The actress referred to a severe pain in the lower back for six hours that forced the young man to go to the ER at the Rúber Clinic in Madrid.

As reported by Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM) in a report available online, "the pathological diagnosis of these tumors is quite complex, because the pathologist has to distinguish them from other similar entities that are similar to each other, and that sometimes have very different treatment. That is why they are almost always to help with specific molecular studies. This is another great reason why it is very important that the diagnosis is made in a high volume center, with expert pathologists in sarcomas"they explain.

Perhaps the search for "expert pathologists in sarcomas" was the trigger that led Ana Obregón to take her son to the US, specifically to one of the best medical centers in the world, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, based in New York and New Jersey, to try a therapy that was not currently available in our country, the prontotherapy. It is a type of radiotherapy that is now within our borders, but that at the time was only carried out abroad.

The complications of this type of cancer are multiple; they refer to them in Mayo Clinic"Ewing's sarcoma can spread from where it started to other areas, making treatment and recovery difficult," they say. And is that this cancer, as we have already mentioned, is more frequent in children and adolescents, so the treatment in adults has a lower percentage of success. According to Spanish Association against Cancer, the survival rate when the disease is localized is 80%, however, as the patient's age advances, this life expectancy decreases markedly.

The treatment is also very aggressive: combinations of up to five types of drugs, chemotherapy and even surgery in some very localized cases. Álex has passed away in Barcelona, ​​where he was receiving a new treatment, which unfortunately was not enough to overcome his illness.