Rhabdomyosarcoma of the hand

Abstract

To the Editor: Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) of the hand is so rare, especially in children, that its occurrence has not been recognized in the hand literature until the work of Potenza and Winslow in 1961 [1,2]. Our experience with a 4-year-old girl with a 2 Â 2-cm alveolar RMS of the palm of the left hand (hypothenar eminence) is therefore of interest. The mass was watched for 6 months, and neither increased nor decreased in size. There was no local or distant lymphadenopathy. Routine hematologic investigations and plain X-ray ®lms were normal. Bone marrow evaluation, ultrasound of the abdomen, and chest X-ray ®lms were unremarkable. An excisional biopsy of the tumor and node dissection was performed, and histological analysis revealed an alveolar RMS without lymph node involvement. The patient underwent chemotherapy one month after surgery and received 8 cycles of ifosfamide, vincristine, actinomycind. Two yearslater, she remains well without functional loss or cosmetic de®cit.The outcome in our patient is encouraging, because the alveolar hystologic subtype of RMS has been generally associated with a poorer prognosis, as has RMS in the extremities [