Hi dyana...sorry to hear about your daughter. I'll tell you what I know about rhabdomyosarcoma, but before I do, I have to give some background information on cancer.

Any new growth in the body is termed a tumour, or more medically a "neoplasm". The benign ones are denoted by ONLY having -oma at the end.....i.e. lipoma, adenoma, hematoma etc. (Notable exceptions are lymphoma and melanoma which are malignant). Malignancy is, by definition a cancerous neoplasm....these neoplasms are invasive, can spread to other organs and have uncontrolled growth. Now, there are two main types of cancers and these are cancers of cells that line organs (i.e. epithelial cells) and cells that make up tissues like muscle, bone, fat etc. etc.

A cancer of epithelial cells will end with -carcinoma...i.e. colon adenocarcinoma, liver cell carcinoma, small cell lung carcinoma etc. etc.

A second type is what your daughter has...i.e. a sarcoma. The "rhabdomyo" refers to the fact that she has a malignant tumour of skeletal muscle--i.e. the muscle in our biceps, quads etc. etc.

I don't know exactly the extent of her cancer, but it will most likely be treated with either: only surgery, only chemo, or surgery reinforced with chemo. Sometimes they reinforce the surgery with radiation instead of chemo, but only if it is very localized. This cancer is not really common in people your daughter's age, though it is the most common soft tissue tumour in children.

Hopefully they have caught the disease early, as the prognosis is very good when caught in the first stages.