Prognostic factors of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma in childhood. An International Society of Pediatric Oncology study.

Pretreatment characteristics of 57 patients with alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) registered by the International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP) between January 1975 and December 1983 were identified to perform a prognostic factor study. Living status and disease-free survival (DFS) time were assessed for all patients on January 1, 1988. By multi-variate analyses, lymph node involvement (P = 0.0003) and tumor invasiveness (P = 0.007) were identified as the most significant covariates correlated with survival. A model including N stage (P = 0.001) and age (P = 0.03) was selected for predicting DFS rates. Children between 5 and 10 years of age had better DFS rates than those younger than 5 years of age or those older than 10 years of age. The authors suggest a prognostic classification that could allow treatment to be adjusted according to clinical staging.