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Metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma cured after chemotherapy and allogeneic SCT

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 43, pages 179–180 (2009)Cite this article

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is the most common soft tissue sarcoma in children and adolescents. Successful treatment of children with RMS requires multimodal therapy. However, despite advances in combined chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery, children with stage IV RMS have a uniformly poor outcome.1 In case of nonembryonal histology in combination with metastatic involvement in three or more organ systems, the prognosis is dismal (3-year survival 5%).2 Other unfavourable risk factors include the age at diagnosis of more than 10 years, bone or BM metastases and RMS of the extremities. Patients with more than two of these risk factors have a 5-year survival of 9%.3 Most patients achieve a remission after conventional therapy, but relapse is frequent, indicating persistence of minimal residual disease.4

Although RMS is a chemosensitive disease, the benefits of high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous haematopoietic stem cell rescue for children with stage IV or relapsed RMS are not clear because randomized trials comparing this treatment with standard chemotherapy are lacking. In a meta-analysis of 389 patients identified from 22 publications, there was no significant survival advantage of high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous haematopoietic stem cell rescue for patients with relapsed or metastatic RMS as compared with standard chemotherapy.5

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Paediatric Haematology and Oncology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    A E Donker, P M Hoogerbrugge, A M C Mavinkurve-Groothuis & J J Groot-Loonen

  2. Department of Paediatric Nephrology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    N C A J van de Kar

  3. Department of Radiology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    C Boetes

  4. Department of Pathology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    C A Hulsbergen-van de Kaa

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  1. A E Donker
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Correspondence to A E Donker.

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Donker, A., Hoogerbrugge, P., Mavinkurve-Groothuis, A. et al. Metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma cured after chemotherapy and allogeneic SCT. Bone Marrow Transplant 43, 179–180 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/bmt.2008.301

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