Your doctor needs to know how far the cancer has spread to plan treatment. There are several staging systems for childhood rhabdomyosarcoma. The treatment options in this summary are based on size, location, and how far and where the cancer has spread. 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.