Your child will probably have to return to the doctor often during chemotherapy for lab tests to look for low blood counts that could lead to bleeding or serious infection. The doctor will also check for other side effects of the treatment. Sometimes your child may need blood transfusions to treat low blood counts or antibiotics to treat infection.
Usually chemotherapy and follow-up testing will be done in the pediatric cancer center, but if you must travel a great distance the specialists involved in your child's care can work with your local doctor to reduce your need to travel.
For several years after treatment, it is very important for your child to have regular follow-up exams with the cancer care team. The doctors will continue to watch for signs of disease, as well as for short-term and long-term side effects of treatment. Doctor visits will be more frequent at first, but the time between visits may get longer as time goes on.
Checkups after treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma include careful physical exams, lab tests, and sometimes imaging tests such as CT and/or MRI scans. If the rhabdomyosarcoma recurs (comes back), it is usually within the first few years after treatment. As time goes by, the risk of recurrence goes down.
If the tumor comes back, or it does not respond to treatment, your child's doctors will discuss with you the various treatment options available (as discussed in "Rhabdomyosarcoma that progresses or recurs after initial treatment").
As mentioned in "How is rhabdomyosarcoma treated?", there are some potential long-term complications from the treatment of this disease, including effects on fertility and a risk of developing another type of cancer at a later time. It's important to talk with your child's doctors to understand what these risks are.
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