Detection of Alveolar Rhabdomyosarcoma

Rhabdomyosarcoma is a malignant soft tissue tumor derived from primitive mesenchymal cells with tendency to skeletal muscle differentiation. According to the international classification, rhabdomyosarcoma is classified into three major types based on morphological features, cytogenetic properties and clinical behavior  

Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (both spindle cell and botryoid types)  

Pleomorphic or anaplastic rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare adult variant of rhabdomyosarcoma. 

Both embryonal and alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma are associated with different cytogenetic abnormalities, which indicate the different molecular etiology of both tumor identities and explain the different clinical behavior. 

Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma is a heterogeneous tumor and about 90% of this tumor are associated with the t(2 13)(q35 ql4) translocation, whereas the other 10% of this tumor are associated with another analogous genetic abnormality namely the t (1 13)(p36 ql4) translocation generating a homologous fusion transcript. 

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