Bisogno G, Minard-Colin V, Jenney M, Ferrari A, Chisholm J, Di Carlo D, Hjalgrim LL, Orbach D, Merks JHM, Casanova M. Cancers (Basel). 2023 Aug 7;15(15):4012. doi: 10.3390/cancers15154012.
The updated results of the RMS2005 randomized study confirm that patients with non-metastatic high risk rhabdomyosarcoma have an improved survival when maintenance chemotherapy (MC) with vinorelbine and low dose cyclophosphamide is added to the standard multidisciplinary treatment. A more recent randomized study adopted the same strategy, but different drugs were used in the MC phase (trofosfamide, idarubicin and etoposide). No survival improvement was evident in the MC group, suggesting that not all types of MC are equally effective. A revision of the literature demonstrates that the role of MC in patients with metastatic or relapsed RMS may be a promising approach but need more investigations.
