Genitourinary rhabdomyosarcoma: lessons from a developing-world series

Identifying barriers to treatment of childhood rhabdomyosarcoma in resource-limited settings: A literature review

We performed a literature review to examine barriers for rhabdomyosarcoma treatment in low-resource settings, and identified 29 articles from 14 middle-income countries, with none from low-income countries. Notable findings included inconsistent use of local control modalities, lack of diagnostics in some settings, and high rate of abandonment specifically in low middle-income countries. Reported limitations included lack of surgical expertise and/or radiation therapy, advanced stage of disease, and absence of health insurance. Although very poor outcomes were prevalent in several settings, good outcomes were achievable in others when multidisciplinary therapy and financial coverage of medical care were made available.

Outcomes of children with rhabdomyosarcoma treated with intensive chemotherapy, surgery, and radiotherapy through a period of protocol revision at a South African center, 1990-2010

A total of 75 children with biopsy-proven rhabdomyosarcoma were treated at our institution between 1990 and 2010. Five-year overall survival (OS) for the entire cohort was 58.7%. OS by stage was as follows: Stage 1 (80%), Stage 2 (80%), Stage 3 (54.1%), and Stage 4 (38.5%). There was a trend to suggest that revision of treatment approaches improved crude survival over time: pre-2003 (OS 42.1%); 2003-2005 (OS 50.0%); 2005-2010 (OS 60.8%).