BEVERLY — When 16-year-old Erik West found out he has an extremely rare form of cancer, he wasn’t scared, he said.

After all, his friend Mike Petrosino survived the exact same thing.

“I’m not worried,” he said. “The night they told me, my mom … Boston has some of the best doctors in the world.”

Among them is Dr. David Ebb at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children. He took care of Petrosino, who was diagnosed three years ago, and now Mike is helping Erik as he goes through chemotherapy and radiation.

The two boys are juniors at Beverly High School. They were born days apart in June at Beverly Hospital. And they were both diagnosed with a rare cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma, in the form of a malignant tumor that started in the same place on the right side of their pelvises.

“There’s only 150 cases a year diagnosed in the U.S.,” said Paula Petrosino, Mike’s mother. “What are the odds of two kids in Beverly?”

“It’s bizarre,” said Elaine West, Erik’s mother.

Indeed, the odds are low for two boys in the same city to be diagnosed with the same rare cancer, Ebb said.

“We were all sort of blown away by how strange and unlikely that was,” he said.

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