Treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma is a multidisciplinary practice involving the use of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and possibly immunotherapy. Surgery is generally the first step in a combined therapeutic approach. Resectability varies depending on tumor site, and RMS often presents in sites that don't allow for full surgical resection without significant morbidity and loss of function. Less than 20% of RMS tumors are fully resected with negative margins. Fortunately, rhabdomyosarcomas are highly chemosensitive, with approximately 80% of cases responding to chemotherapy. In fact, multi-agent chemotherapy is indicated for all patients with rhabdomyosarcoma. Before the use of adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapy involving chemotherapeutic agents, treatment solely by surgical means had a survival rate of <20%. Modern survival rates with adjuvant therapy are approximately 60–70%.

There are two main methods of chemotherapy treatment for RMS. There is the VAC regimen, consisting of vincristin, actinomyocin D, and cyclophosphamide, and the IVA regimen, consisting of ifosfamide, vincristin, and actinomyocin D. These drugs are administered in 9–15 cycles depending on the staging of the disease and other therapies used. Other drug and therapy combinations may also show additional benefit. Addition of doxorubicin and cisplatin to the VAC regimen was shown to increase survival rates of patients with alveolar-type, early-stage RMS in IRS study III, and this same addition improved survival rates and doubled bladder salvage rates in patients with stage III RMS of the bladder.

Radiation therapy, which kill cancer cells with focused doses of radiation, is often indicated in the treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma, and the exclusion of this treatment from disease management has been shown to increase recurrence rates. Radiation therapy is used when resecting the entirety of the tumor would involve disfigurement or loss of important organs (eye, bladder, etc.). Generally, in any case where a lack of complete resection is suspected, radiation therapy is indicated. Administration is usually following 6–12 weeks of chemotherapy if tumor cells are still present. The exception to this schedule is the presence of parameningeal tumors that have invaded the brain, spinal cord, or skull. In these cases radiation treatment is started immediately. In some cases, special radiation treatment may be required. Brachytherapy, or the placement of small, radioactive “seeds” directly inside the tumor or cancer site, is often indicated in children with tumors of sensitive areas such as the testicles, bladder, or vagina. This reduces scattering and the degree of late toxicity following dosing. Radiation therapy is more often indicated in higher stage classifications.

Immunotherapy is a more recent treatment modality that is still in development. This method involves recruiting and training the patient's immune system to target the cancer cells. This can be accomplished through administering small molecules designed to pull immune cells towards the tumors, taking immune cells pulled from the patient and training to attack tumors through presentation with tumor antigen, or other experimental methods. A specific example here would be presenting some of the patient's dendritic cells, which direct the immune system to foreign cells, with the PAX3-FKHR fusion protein in order to focus the patient's immune system to the malignant RMS cells. All cancers, including rhabdomyosarcoma, could potentially benefit from this new, immune-based approach.

NUT midline carcinoma is very resistant to standard chemotherapy treatments. The tumor may initially respond to therapy, and then rapid recurrence is experienced, followed by death. A multimodality approach to treatment is advocated, especially since most patients present with advanced disease. Treatment must be tailored to the individual patient, with several promising new targeted molecular therapies in clinical trials. Specific molecular targeted therapies (BET inhibitors and histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi)) may help to yield growth arrest of the neoplastic cells. Overall, there is a mean survival of 6–9 months.

Because LCLC-RP is so rare, no clinical trials have ever been conducted that specifically address treatment of this lung cancer variant. Because LCLC-RP is considered a form of non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), most physicians adhere to published NSCLC treatment guidelines in rhabdoid carcinoma cases. When possible, radical surgical resection with curative intent is the primary treatment of choice in early stage NSCLC's, and can be administered with or without adjuvant, neoadjuvant, or palliative chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, depending on the disease stage and performance status of the individual patient.

In numerous clinical trials conducted in NSCLC, several different platinum-based chemotherapy regimens have been shown to be more-or-less equally effective. LCLC's, as a subtype of NSCLC, have traditionally been included in many of these clinical trials, and have been treated like other NSCLC's. More recent trials, however, have shown that some newer agents may have particular effectiveness in prolonging survival of LCLC patients. Pemetrexed, in particular, has shown significant reduction in the hazard ratio for death when used in patients with LCLC. Taxane-based (paclitaxel, docetaxel) chemotherapy was shown to induce a complete and sustained response in a liver metastasis in a case of LCC-RP. A later-appearing metastasis within mediastinal lymph nodes in the same case also showed a durable response to a taxane alone.

There have also been reports of rhabdoid carcinomas expressing vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), suggesting that targeted molecular therapy with VEGF blocking monoclonal antibodies such as bevacizumab may be active in these variants. However, evidence suggests that caution must be used when treating a cavitated rhabdoid tumor, one that contains significant components of squamous cell differentiation, or large tumors with containing major blood vessels, due to the potential high risk of life-threatening pulmonary hemorrhage.

A recent study reported a case wherein 2 courses of adjuvant therapy with cisplatin and paclitaxel, followed by oral gefitinib, were used after complete resection. The patient had had no recurrence 34 months later.

As large-volume LCLC-RP may show significant central necrosis and cavitation, prudence dictates that oncologists use extreme caution if contemplating the therapeutic use of bevacizumab, other anti-VEGF compounds, or anti-angiogenesis agents in general, which have been associated with a greatly increased risk of severe hemorrhage and hemoptysis that may be quickly fatal in cavatated pulmonary squamous cell carcinomas. Similar elevated risks have also been noted in tumors located near, or containing, large blood vessels.,

Almost all patients require multidrug chemotherapy (often including ifosfamide and etoposide), as well as local disease control with surgery and/or radiation. An aggressive approach is necessary because almost all patients with apparently localized disease at the time of diagnosis actually have asymptomatic metastatic disease.

Treatment often consists of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, which may include vincristine, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide with ifosfamide and etoposide. After about three months of chemotherapy, the remaining tumor is surgically resected, irradiated, or both. The surgical resection may involve limb salvage or amputation. Complete excision at the time of biopsy may be performed if malignancy is confirmed at the time it is examined.

Treatment lengths vary depending on location and stage of the disease at diagnosis. Radical chemotherapy may be as short as six treatments at 3-week cycles, but most patients undergo chemotherapy for 6–12 months and radiation therapy for 5–8 weeks.

Radiotherapy has been used for localized disease. The tumor has a unique property of being highly sensitive to radiation, sometimes acknowledged by the phrase "melting like snow", but the main drawback is that it recurs dramatically after some time. Antisense oligodeoxynucleotides have been proposed as possible treatment by down-regulating the expression of the oncogenic fusion protein associated with the development of Ewing's sarcoma resulting from the EWS-ETS gene translocation. In addition, the synthetic retinoid derivative fenretinide (4-hydroxy(phenyl)retinamide) has been reported to induce high levels of cell death in Ewing's sarcoma cell lines "in vitro" and to delay growth of xenografts in "in vivo" mouse models.

Around 50% of the AT/RTs will transiently respond, but chemotherapy by itself is rarely curative. No standard treatment for AT/RT is known. Various chemotherapeutic agents have been used against AT/RTs, which are also used against other CNS tumors including cisplatinum, carboplatinum, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and etoposide. Some chemotherapy regimens are listed below:

- CCG clinical trial CCG-9921 was activated in 1993 and published its results in 2005. The proposed treatments did not have different outcomes and were not an improvement on prior treatments. Geyer published a review of chemotherapy on 299 infants with CNS tumors that evaluated response rate, event-free survival (EFS), and toxicity of two chemotherapeutic regimens for treatment of children younger than 36 months with malignant brain tumors. Patients were randomly assigned to one of two regimens of induction chemotherapy (vincristine, cisplatin, cyclophosphamide, and etoposide v vincristine, carboplatin, ifosfamide, and etoposide). Intensified induction chemotherapy resulted in a high response rate of malignant brain tumors in infants. Survival was comparable to that of previous studies, and most patients who survived did not receive radiation therapy.

- Sarcoma protocols. There has been at least one report in the literature of malignant rhabdoid tumors of the CNS being treated in as a high-grade intracranial sarcoma. These three cases were treated with surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and triple intrathecal chemotherapy similar to the Intergroup Rhabdomyosarcoma Study III guidelines.

- Intrathecal protocols. One of the difficulties with brain and spinal tumors is that the blood brain barrier needs to be crossed so that the drug can get to the tumor. One mechanism to deliver the drug is through a device called an Ommaya reservoir. This is a device which shares some characteristics with a shunt in which a tube a surgically placed in the fluid surrounding the brain and a bulb shaped reservoir attached to the tubing is placed under the skin of the scalp. When the child is to receive intrathecal chemotherapy, the drug is administered into this bulb reservoir. At other times intrathecal chemotherapeutic agents are delivered through a lumbar puncture (spinal tap). A current Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium Protocol uses intrathecal mafosfamide, a pre-activated cyclophosphamide derivative, in addition to other modalities to try to effect this tumor.

- High dose chemotherapy with stem cell rescue. This therapy uses chemotherapy at doses high enough to completely suppress the bone marrow. Prior to instituting this therapy, the child has a central line placed and stem cells are gathered. After therapy these cells are given back to the child to regrow the bone marrow. Stem cell rescue or autologous bone marrow transplantation, was initially thought to be of benefit to a wide group of patients, but has declined over the history of chemotherapy protocols.

Radiotherapy alone is reserved only for small lesions not appropriate for either surgery or chemotherapy. Both photon and proton radiotherapy have been used effectively to treat esthesioneuroblastoma. Proton radiotherapy has recently been shown to be effective in a 10-person study with Kadish C tumors, while delivering less toxicity to the nervous system.

Surgery is important in the treatment of most sarcomas. Limb sparing surgery, as opposed to amputation, can now be used to save the limbs of patients in at least 90% of extremity tumor cases. Additional treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation therapy, may be administered before and/or after surgery. Chemotherapy significantly improves the prognosis for many sarcoma patients, especially those with bone sarcomas. Treatment can be a long and arduous process, lasting about a year for many patients.

- Liposarcoma treatment consists of surgical resection, with chemotherapy not being used outside of the investigative setting. Adjuvant radiotherapy may also be used after surgical excision for liposarcoma.

- Rhabdomyosarcoma is treated with surgery, radiotherapy, and/or chemotherapy. The majority of rhabdomyosarcoma patients have a 50–85% survival rate.

- Osteosarcoma is treated with surgical resection of as much of the cancer as possible, often along with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Radiotherapy is a second alternative although not as successful.

Chemotherapy is used in a multimodality treatment plan generally for more advanced, unresectable or reoccurring tumors. Cyclophosphamide, vincristine and doxorubicin have been used as neoadjuvant chemotherapy drugs for grade C esthesioneuroblastoma before surgical resection, producing fair outcomes. Cisplatin and etoposide are often used to treat esthesioneuroblastoma as neoadjuvants or adjuvants with radiotherapy or surgery. Study results are promising. In advanced stage esthesioneuroblastoma in pediatric patients, where surgery is no longer possible, aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy has resulted in some tumor control and long term survival.

The Stehlin Foundation currently offers DSRCT patients the opportunity to send samples of their tumors free of charge for testing. Research scientists are growing the samples on nude mice and testing various chemical agents to find which are most effective against the individual's tumor.

Patients with advanced DSRCT may qualify to participate in clinical trials that are researching new drugs to treat the disease.

The traditional practice for childhood brain tumors has been to use chemotherapy and to defer radiation therapy until a child is older than three years. This strategy is based upon observations that children under three have significant long-term complications as a result of brain irradiation. However, the long-term outcomes of AT/RT are so poor that some protocols call for upfront radiation therapy, often in spite of young age.

The dose and volume of radiation had not been standardized, but radiation does appear to improve survival. The use of radiation has been limited in children younger than three because of the risk of severe neurocognitive deficits. Protocols using conformal, local radiation in the young child are used to try to cure this tumor.

External beam (conformal) radiation uses several beams that intersect at the tumor location; the normal brain tissue receives less radiation and cognitive function is thereby less affected.

Proton beam radiation was only offered at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and at Loma Linda, California, as of 2002. Since 2003, three or four more proton therapy centers have opened in the United States. St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is in the process of building one at their Memphis, Tennessee, location. Some centers have since opened in Europe. (Germany, Switzerland, and France).

Determination of treatment options depends on certain factors, some of which affect internal organs and others that affect personal appearance. When determining treatment, oncologists consider the initial location the tumor, the likelihood of body function deterioration, the effect on appearance, and the patient's potential response to chemotherapy and radiation. Surgery is the least successful of the treatment options; the tumor cannot be completely removed because it develops within the cells. Chemotherapy follows surgery to shrink or eliminate the remaining cancer cells.

Stem cell research under clinical trial shows promise to replace lost cells.

The aggressiveness of this cancer requires the response of a large team of specialists, possibly including a pediatric surgeon, oncologist, hematologist, specialty nurse, and rehabilitation specialists. Social workers and psychologists aid recovery by building a system of emotional support. Treatment is harsh on the body and may result in side effects including mood swings, learning difficulties, memory loss, physical deformations or restrictions, and potential risk of secondary cancers.

The prognosis for DSRCT remains poor. Prognosis depends upon the stage of the cancer. Because the disease can be misdiagnosed or remain undetected, tumors frequently grow large within the abdomen and metastasize or seed to other parts of the body.

There is no known organ or area of origin. DSRCT can metastasize through lymph nodes or the blood stream. Sites of metastasis include the spleen, diaphragm, liver, large and small intestine, lungs, central nervous system, bones, uterus, bladder, genitals, abdominal cavity, and the brain.

A multi-modality approach of high-dose chemotherapy, aggressive surgical resection, radiation, and stem cell rescue improves survival for some patients. Reports have indicated that patients will initially respond to first line chemotherapy and treatment but that relapse is common.

Some patients in remission or with inoperable tumor seem to benefit from long term low dose chemotherapy, turning DSRCT into a chronic disease.

In women, chemotherapy may damage the ovaries and cause infertility. To avail future pregnancies, the woman may preserve oocytes or ovarian tissue by oocyte cryopreservation or ovarian tissue cryopreservation prior to starting chemotherapy. However, the latter may reseed the cancer upon reinsertion of the ovarian tissue. If it is performed, the ovarian tissue should be examined for traces of malignancy at both the pathological and molecular levels prior to the grafting of the cryopreserved tissue.

Patients who have been diagnosed with ARMS often have poor outcomes. The four year survival rate without remission for local ARMS tumors is 65 percent, while the four year survival rate with metastatic ARMS is only 15 percent. Patients who have metastatic ARMS positive with PAX3-FOXO1 fusion often have a poorer outcome than patients positive with PAX7-FOXO1 fusion, with a four-year survival rate of 8 percent and 75 percent respectively. Other variables affect the four year survival rate, such as, primary tumor site, size of primary tumor, amount of local invasion, number of distal lymph nodes spread to, and whether metastasis has occurred. Prognosis for patients who have primary tumor sites within the bones often have higher survival rates and respond well to treatment options. While patients who have primary tumor sites within the nasopharynx region with metastases to the breast have very poor outcomes. Patients who are fusion protein negative with low risk clinical features should be treated with reduced therapy, while patients who are fusion protein positive with low risk clinical features should be treated as an intermediate risk and have more intensive therapy regimens.

Prophylactic mastectomy to reduce the risk of breast cancer is an option.

Treatment of VAS is through aggressive surgery. As soon as the tumor is recognized, it should be removed with very wide margins to ensure complete removal. Treatment may also include chemotherapy or radiation therapy. The most significant prognostic factor is initial surgical treatment. One study showed that cats with radical (extensive) initial surgery had a median time to recurrence of 325 days versus 79 days for cats with marginal initial excision. The expression of a mutated form of p53, a tumor suppressor gene, is found commonly in VAS and indicates a poorer prognosis.

Recommendations for individuals from families affected by the syndrome include:

- Avoidance of radiation therapy to reduce risk of secondary radiation induced malignancies,

- Children and adults undergo comprehensive annual physical examination,

- Women undergo age specific breast cancer monitoring beginning at age 25 years, and

- All patients should consult a physician promptly for evaluation of lingering symptoms and illnesses.

LCLC-RP are considered to be especially aggressive tumors with a dismal prognosis. Many published cases have shown short survival times after diagnosis. Some studies suggest that, as the proportion of rhabdoid cells in the tumor increases, the prognosis tends to worsen, although this is most pronounced when the proportion of rhabdoid cells exceeds 5%. With regard to "parent" neoplasms other than LCLC, adenocarcinomas with rhabdoid features have been reported to have worse prognoses than adenocarcinomas without rhabdoid features, although an "adenocarcinoma with rhabdoid phenotype" tumor variant has not been specifically recognized as a distinct entity under the WHO-2004 classification system.

Interestingly, there are case reports of rhabdoid carcinomas recurring after unusually long periods, which is unusual for a fast-growing, aggressive tumor type. One report described a very early stage patient whose tumor recurred 6 years after initial treatment. Although rapidly progressive, fulminant courses seem to be the rule in this entity, long-term survival has also been noted, even post-metastectomy in late stage, distant metastatic disease.

The disease used to be uniformly fatal, with a 5-year survival rate between 10 and 35%. As a result, treatment was radical surgery. New multidrug chemotherapy regimens with or without radiation therapy are now used in combination with less radical surgery with good results, although outcome data are not yet available.

The usual treatment is surgery. The surgery usually is a fertility-sparing unilateral salpingo-oophorectomy. For malignant tumours, the surgery may be radical and usually is followed by adjuvant chemotherapy, sometimes by radiation therapy. In all cases, initial treatment is followed by surveillance. Because in many cases Sertoli–Leydig cell tumour does not produce elevated tumour markers, the focus of surveillance is on repeated physical examination and imaging. Given that many cases of Sertoli–Leydig cell tumor of the ovary are hereditary, referral to a clinical genetics service should be considered.

The prognosis is generally good as the tumour tends to grow slowly and usually is benign: 25% are malignant. For malignant tumours with undifferentiated histology, prognosis is poor.

In addition to being named based on the tissue of origin, sarcomas are also assigned a grade (low, intermediate, or high) based on the presence and frequency of certain cellular and subcellular characteristics associated with malignant biological behavior. Low grade sarcomas are usually treated surgically, although sometimes radiation therapy or chemotherapy are used. Intermediate and high grade sarcomas are more frequently treated with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. Since higher grade tumors are more likely to undergo metastasis (invasion and spread to locoregional and distant sites), they are treated more aggressively. The recognition that many sarcomas are sensitive to chemotherapy has dramatically improved the survival of patients. For example, in the era before chemotherapy, long-term survival for patients with localized osteosarcoma was only approximately 20%, but now has risen to 60–70%.

The prognosis for rhabdomyosarcoma has improved greatly in recent decades, with over 70% of patients surviving for five years after diagnosis.

Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (ARMS) is a sub-type of the rhabdomyosarcoma soft tissue cancer family whose lineage is from mesenchymal cells and are related to skeletal muscle cells. ARMS tumors resemble the alveoli tissue that can be found in the lungs. Tumor location varies from patient to patient, but is commonly found in the head and neck region, male and female urogenital tracts, the torso, and extremities. Two fusion proteins can be associated with ARMS, but are not necessary, PAX3-FKHR (now known as FOXO1). and PAX7-FKHR. In children and adolescents ARMS accounts for about 1 percent of all malignancies, has an incidence rate of 1 per million, and most cases occur sporadically with no genetic predisposition.

Rhabdomyosarcoma, or RMS, is an aggressive and highly malignant form of cancer that develops from skeletal (striated) muscle cells that have failed to fully differentiate. It is generally considered to be a disease of childhood, as the vast majority of cases occur in those below the age of 18. It is commonly described as one of the "small, round, blue cell tumours of childhood" due to its appearance on an H&E stain. Despite being a relatively rare cancer, it accounts for approximately 40% of all recorded soft tissue sarcomas. RMS can occur in any site on the body, but is primarily found in the head, neck, orbit, genitourinary tract, genitals, and extremities. There are no clear risk factors for RMS, but the disease has been associated with some congenital abnormalities. Signs and symptoms vary according to tumor site, and prognosis is closely tied to the location of the primary tumor. Common site of metastasis include the lungs, bone marrow, and bones. There are many classification systems for RMS and a variety of defined histological types. Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common type and comprises about 60% of cases. Patient outcomes vary considerably, with 5 years survival rates between 35% and 95% depending on the type of RMS involved, so clear diagnosis is critical for effective treatment and management. Unfortunately, accurate and quick diagnosis is often difficult due to the heterogeneity of RMS tumors and a lack of strong genetic markers of the disease. Treatment usually involves a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Sixty percent to 70% of newly diagnosed patients with nonmetastatic disease can be cured using this combined approach to therapy. Despite aggressive multimodality treatment, less than 20% of patients with metastatic RMS are able to be cured of their disease.

Spindle cell rhabdomyosarcoma is a subtype of embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma first described by Cavazzana, Schmidt and Ninfo in 1992. This subtype has a more favorable clinical course and prognosis than usual embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma. Spindle cell rhabdomyosarcoma typically occurs in young males and most commonly occurs in paratesticular soft tissue, followed by the head and neck.