Mortality in pediatric paratesticular rhabdomyosarcoma: a multivariate analysis

We performed a retrospective analysis of 28 children presenting with confirmed paratesticular embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma to examine factors predictive of fatal outcome. Complete surgery, defined as radical inguinal orchiectomy with clear microscopic margins plus radical, retroperitoneal lymph node dissection with extirpation of all gross disease, was performed in 21 patients (75 per cent). All patients received chemotherapy and 20 received radiation therapy according to protocol. Of the patients 16 have survived for more than 5 years with no evidence of disease. Univariate analysis revealed that only the presence of parenchymal metastases at diagnosis (p less than or equal to 0.040) and unresectability (p less than or equal to 0.003) were significant predictors of fatal outcome. Multivariate analysis showed that unresectability was the most important predictor of mortality with an estimated relative risk of 5.8.