Samina Zaman, Muneeza Khalid, Mahvish Hussain, Maham Akhlaq, Zonaira Rathore, Mehreen Nasir.
Rhabdomyosarcoma in Pediatric Population; a 5 year experience at Children’s Hospital, Lahore.
Pak J Med Health Sci Jan ;12(3):1028-30.

Background: Soft tissue sarcomas comprise 7% of all maligna nt tumours in children with Rhabdomyosarcoma being the commonest soft tissue sarcoma. In Children Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma (ERMS) and alveolar (ARMS) are the most common subtypes. Patients younger than 10 years of age have more chances of developing ERMS and >10 years are likely to have ARMS. There are two important prognostic factors in Rhabdomyosarcoma namely age at diagnosis and histological features. Aim: To study the morphology and frequency of Rhabdomyosarcoma among pediatric population. Methods: A retrospective cross sectional study including all cases of Rhabdomyosarcoma among the children diagnosed under 15 years of age were included. All specimens were fixed in 10% buffered formalin, routinely processed under standardized protocol conditions for paraffin embedding, sectioned and finally stained with hematoxylin and eosin. Immuno-histochemical stains including Desmin and Myogenin were applied by standard protocol. Results : A total of 61 cases were diagnosed as Rhabdomyosarcoma during the study period. All cases were of ERMS type. Out of them, 38(62.2%) were males and 23 (37.7%) were females with male to female ratio of 1.7:1 . Majority of the tumors were seen ; 34 cases (55.7%) in age range of 1-5 years. However, there were two cases (3%) in which the age was not mentioned. Out of 61 cases , head and neck was the most common site for Rhabdomyosarcoma , 18 cases (29%) followed by genitourinary system ,17 cases (28%). There were 5 cases (8.2%) in which site was not mentioned. All the diagnosed cases were confirmed by IHC. Conclusion: Rhabdomyosarcoma is , the most common soft tissue sarcoma in pediatric population with predominant involvement of head and neck and genitourinary system. Majority of the patients presented before the age of 5 years. ERMS is the predominant type , with male preponderance.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com