title: Pediatric rhabdomyosarcomas in Tunisia.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common soft tissue sarcoma in the first two decades of life. Since there is a paucity of reports on the pattern of its occurrence in Tunisia, we here analysed the epidemiological pattern, clinical features, and pathology.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively studied 30 consecutive cases of histologically proven rhabdomyosarcoma in children aged 0-15 years extracted from the database of the Cancer Registry of the Center of Tunisia for the period 1993-2007.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Rhabdomyosarcomas represented 53.6% of soft tissue sarcomas and 3.8% of all children cancer cases registered during this period. The male/female ratio was 2.7 with a mean age at diagnosis of 5.9 years. The embryonal subtype was the most frequent (60%) and the two most common sites of disease were the head and neck (50%) and genito-urinary tract(23.3%). Chemotherapy was used in 90% of patients; 43.3% of patients had radical surgery and 26.7% of patients received radiation therapy.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The epidemiology, pathology and clinical features of rhabdomyosarcoma in Tunisian children are close to those reported from other countries.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Epidemiology and Cytopathology in Tunisian Center, Medicine Faculty, Tunisia. missaouinabiha@live.fr
authors.forename: Nabiha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Missaoui
authors.forename: Hanène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Landolsi
authors.forename: Lilia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Jaidene
authors.forename: Affissath
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Anjorin
authors.forename: Atef Ben
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Abdelkader
authors.forename: Mohamed Tahar
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Yaacoubi
authors.forename: Sihem
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hmissa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006258:Head and Neck Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D012042:Registries; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012208:Rhabdomyosarcoma / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology; D012983:Soft Tissue Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology; D014416:Tunisia / Q000453:epidemiology; D014571:Urologic Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy