I read a two articles about treatments for recurrence of rhabdomyosarcoma recently. I first got interested in this childhood and young adult cancer when I read Karen's blog. Karen was diagnosed as a young adult and wants to raise awareness for this rare cancer, sometimes just called rhabdo, that does not have a great survival rate. I did a post about her and her cancer journey that you can read called Raising awareness about rhabdomyosarcoma.

This brings me to the two articles that I recently read about treatments for recurrent rhabdomyosarcoma:

A Phase II clinical trial was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The drug Camptosar (irinotecan) reduced or eliminated detectable cancer in 11 percent of the children who had relapsed rhabdomyosarcoma. The study states that patients with recurrent disease have a very poor prognosis. Eleven percent, (four out of thirty five patients), does not seem like a very high success rate however, these trials are needed to find treatments to improve survival for this deadly cancer.

The other article I read was also published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. It states that treatment with the chemotherapy drug combination of Camptosar (irinotecan) and vincristine reduced or eliminated detectable cancer in 70 percent of children with metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma. It stated that treatment alone with Camptosar is not good enough. The combination of Camptosar and vincristine, 70 percent of children experienced a partial or complete disappearance of detectable cancer. This is better news!

You can read more about rhabdomyosarcoma in the post called Cancer by the Numbers: Rhabdomyosarcoma.