It may come back in the area where it started or in another part of the body. How Childhood Rhabdomyosarcoma Is Treated There are treatments for all patients with childhood rhabdomyosarcoma. Surgery is a common treatment for rhabdomyosarcoma. Depending on where the cancer is, your child's doctor will take out as much of the cancer as possible, along with some of the normal tissue around it. Surgery is usually followed by chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill cancer cells.
Chemotherapy may be taken by mouth in the form of a pill, or it may be put into the body by a needle in a vein or muscle. Chemotherapy is called a systemic treatment because the drugs enter the bloodstream, travel through the body, and can kill cancer cells throughout the body. Bone marrow transplantation is a treatment being studied for recurrent rhabdomyosarcoma. Sometimes rhabdomyosarcoma becomes resistant to treatment with standard doses of radiation therapy or chemotherapy. Very high doses of chemotherapy may then be used to treat the cancer.