Diagnosis
of rhabdomyosarcoma begins with a thorough health history and a comprehensive physical examination.
«The way we manage children
with rhabdomyosarcoma today is based on what he did through all those years of tireless work in the Pediatric Oncology Group.
«A so - called «muscle» cancer is not really a muscle cancer: Pinpointing the cell type that turns malignant
in rhabdomyosarcoma opens the path for better treatments.»
The Christina Renna Foundation donates over $ 30,000
for rhabdomyosarcoma research, and honors Associate Professor Chris Vakoc with its research award...
Research led by Mark Hatley, MD, PhD, of St. Jude Oncology, has shown that certain embryonal
rhabdomyosarcoma tumors arise from early endothelial cells instead.
About 60 percent of
rhabdomyosarcoma patients have tumors of the embryonal subtype, and about 25 percent have the alveolar subtype.
As noted in Part I of this article, γ - tocopherol is preferentially metabolized into γ - CEHC, and the latter compound has been observed to exert much stronger anti-proliferative activity than α - CEHC in prostate cancer cells and
rhabdomyosarcoma cells.
Based on the results, St. Jude plans to expand biopsies to include
recurrent rhabdomyosarcoma tumors and possibly other solid tumors.
In addition to research
on rhabdomyosarcoma, the Ignatius laboratory has also generated new syngeneic zebrafish models of aggressive Malignant Nerve Sheath Tumors and hemangiosarcomas for which there are no effective treatments.
«Studies like the current one
involving rhabdomyosarcoma are giving us a close - up look at the way cancer evolves in response to treatment,» said study co-author Richard K. Wilson, Ph.D., director of The Genome Institute at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, where scientists have extensive expertise analyzing tumor recurrence using whole - genome sequencing.
Research on mouse tumors
resembling rhabdomyosarcoma, the most common soft tissue sarcoma in children, revealed that the immune system's T cells may be just as critical to fighting tumor cells as the viral therapy injections themselves.
Drugs that enhance a process called oxidative stress were found to
kill rhabdomyosarcoma tumor cells growing in the laboratory and possibly bolstered the effectiveness of chemotherapy against this aggressive tumor of muscle and other soft tissue.
St. Jude researchers show that
rhabdomyosarcoma also originates from endothelial cells lining blood vessels.
The findings may also lead to drugs to
prevent rhabdomyosarcoma in children with a genetic predisposition to the cancer, Hatley said.
The researchers also explored whether another key cancer - activating pathway, called KRAS, might
trigger rhabdomyosarcoma.
His experiments revealed the cells that
became rhabdomyosarcoma were not muscle cells, but were immature cells that would mature into cells lining the inner surface of blood vessels.
«Moody also forged
how rhabdomyosarcoma is managed in kids, and not just radiation therapy but how radiation is intertwined with chemotherapy.
The study focused on embryonal
rhabdomyosarcoma caused by mutations in the Sonic Hedgehog signaling pathway and used a mouse model developed in Hatley's laboratory.
This study offers the first evidence that
rhabdomyosarcoma patients might benefit from drugs that harness the mechanism to kill cancer cells, including medications that are on the market or in development.
From these studies we hope to identify new pathways to target
in rhabdomyosarcoma and new sarcoma models we have generated and our currently characterizing.
«Overall, survival for patients with
recurrent rhabdomyosarcoma is just 17 percent, and until now nothing was known about how tumors evolve in response to therapy,» said corresponding author Michael Dyer, Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Department of Developmental Neurobiology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
We had just gotten through a successful tax season when the unthinkable happened: The youngest of our three children, 4 - year - old Nicholas, was diagnosed
with rhabdomyosarcoma, a cancer of the connective tissue.
Cross-species array comparative genomic hybridization identifies novel oncogenic events in zebrafish and human
embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma.
Hatley said understanding the cell of origin will bring badly needed insights to aid diagnosis and treatment
of rhabdomyosarcoma.
The results support the hypothesis that alveolar
rhabdomyosarcoma is driven by a single chromosomal rearrangement.
This analysis suggests that a rare subset of tumor cells harbor different genetic alterations and that those cells serve as the seeds for the recurrence of
rhabdomyosarcoma.»
About 350 new cases of
rhabdomyosarcoma are identified each year in the U.S., making it the most common soft tissue tumor in children.
The results followed next generation, whole genome sequencing of the tumor and normal genomes of 16 tumors from 13
rhabdomyosarcoma patients.
«A better understanding of the machinery of
rhabdomyosarcoma could enable entirely new treatment approaches.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital oncologists have discovered the cell type that gives rise to
rhabdomyosarcoma, the most prevalent soft tissue cancer in children.
Such studies will aid diagnosis and treatment of
rhabdomyosarcoma.
Hatley, along with Rene Galindo, Eric Olson and in collaboration with Graff, determined these tumors were
rhabdomyosarcoma.
The unexpected discovery that
rhabdomyosarcoma is not really a muscle cancer may offer broader lessons for researchers seeking the cellular origin of cancers.
All seven institutions used IGRT for treatment of ependymoma (cancer of the tissue of the brain or spinal cord), abdominal and pelvic sarcoma, and
rhabdomyosarcoma (cancer of the muscles attached to the bones).
At the Solid Tumor Oncology Program, part of C.S. Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan, we provide comprehensive, multidisciplinary care for children with
rhabdomyosarcoma.
If
a rhabdomyosarcoma is the diagnosis, your doctor will stage the tumor, which determines if and how far the cancer has spread.
At the Children's Oncology Group, we work on the design and implementation of studies regarding Ewing's sarcoma, osteosarcoma,
rhabdomyosarcoma, and other soft tissue sarcomas.
A rhabdomyosarcoma can occur in many places in the body, most commonly around the structures of the head and neck, within the urogenital tract, and in the arms or legs.