What is Sarcoma botryoides, Symptoms, Causes, Treatment

What is Sarcoma botryoides, Symptoms, Causes, Treatment

Sarcoma botryoides is also named as botryoides sarcoma or Botryoid rhabdomyosarcoma. Sarcoma is a word that is associated with a malignant tumor, though they are not a common tumor. Tissues associated with bone and muscle get affected in this cancer. It is metastasized and can spread to other adjacent affected areas, making treatment and recovery hard. Most often spreads to the lungs, lymph nodes, and bones.

What are Sarcoma botryoides?

It is a sub-classification of embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, a malignant tumor of soft tissue developed from embryonic skeletal muscle tissue. The word skeletal muscle doesn’t mean that it begins in the legs or arms, but cancer in the biliary tract and vagina in childhood. The main types are bone and soft tissue sarcomas. Sarcomas can develop in anywhere in the body like head and neck, mainly beginning in the arms or legs. But tissues of fat, skin tissues, fibrous tissues, blood vessels, muscles, and nerves can grow soft tissue sarcomas.

What is Sarcoma botryoides, Symptoms, Causes, Treatment

In children, mostly sarcomas are developed. Sarcomas botryoides is one of the vaginal cancers of young females. The malignant tumor grows in the hollow areas of the body, lined with mucosa. Areas are nasopharynx, common bile duct, prostate, testicles, cervix, bladder, ureter, uterus, urinary bladder in adolescents, rarely in eyelid most commonly and in the vagina in younger females. Older women in these cases also reported. The tumor has grapes like bunches in appearance, and from there, its name arises. The survival rate of children also depends on the risk of cancer and the tumor’s size.

Early diagnosis and treatment of the sarcoma botryoides can save children up to 80%. For diagnosis, symptoms understand through physical examination. Some tests such as imaging tests include x-ray, Computerized tomography (CT), and Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Sometimes a biopsy is also recommended. A pediatric oncologist treats sarcoma botryoides.

Sarcoma botryoides Symptoms

 Signs and symptoms mainly depend on the area and the size of the tumor. When cancer grows in the genitourinary tract, it causes compression of the nearby areas, bleeding from the vagina, white soft or hard nodular mass protruding from the rectum. Difficulty during urination because of obstructing bladder, blood in urine, trouble in bowel movements. Other symptoms include headache, nausea, vomiting, signs of sinus infection and earache, pain in the abdomen, constipation, blurred vision, droopy eyelid, and bulging of the eye in rare tumors. Sometimes symptoms only appear when cancer grows and becomes large or when it is a fast-growing tumor. 

Sarcoma botryoides Causes

The causes of sarcoma botryoides are not exact so far. But the researcher suggests that the leading cause of the tumor is abnormal changes in DNA. DNA is a primary chemical containing genetic information that gives instructions for the synthesis of the human body. Abnormal changes lead to growing the cell quickly, both in size and numbers. Ultimately a growth protrudes and destroys the normal healthy body tissues of the body. Parents can transmit these gene changes to their offspring. Some studies found the risk factors include having a family history of cancer. Still, children who develop botryoides sarcoma don’t have any cancer history in the family.

Some genetic syndromes pass in children from their parents, but sarcoma connections with genetic syndromes are rare. This cancer is common in children, so causes related to lifestyles like diet, physical exercise, body weight, alcohol and tobacco intake, and environment that take time to cause abnormality in the body are not significant in the children’s malignancy. Parent exposure to x-rays and addiction to drugs like cocaine and marijuana before birth might increase cancer risk in their children.

Sarcoma botryoides Treatment

As symptoms depend on the tumor’s size and area, the treatment also depends on the size, location, nature of cancer, and the extent of cancer. The tumor is localized to one place or has spread to different organs. Its prognosis involves chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery. Surgery prefers a localized tumor because it aims to remove all the tumor cells. Surgery becomes problematic if the cancerous cells grow and spread to other adjacent organs.

Oncologists prefer chemotherapy and radiation in those cases when cancerous cells are unable to remove entirely through surgery. In chemotherapy, cancer cells tried to kill as much as possible through powerful anticancer drugs. Chemotherapeutic agents are also administered before surgery and radiation therapy to make them useful by shrinking the cancer cell in size. Radiation therapy is used in those tumor areas where surgery can’t reach. Mostly through x-rays and high-energy beams are used in radiation therapy. 

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