A risk factor is anything that affects the chance of having a disease such as cancer. Different cancers have different risk factors. For example, exposing skin to strong sunlight is a risk factor for skin cancer. Smoking is a risk factor for several types of cancer.

Unlike many adult cancers, lifestyle-related risk factors do not seem to play a large role in childhood cancers.

No environmental factors (such as exposures during the mother's pregnancy or in early childhood) are known to increase the chance of getting rhabdomyosarcoma.

Inherited conditions

Some people inherit a tendency to develop certain types of cancer. The DNA we inherit from our parents may have certain changes that account for this tendency to develop cancer. Some rare inherited conditions increase the risk of rhabdomyosarcoma (and usually some other tumors as well).

• Members of families with Li-Fraumeni syndrome are more likely to develop sarcomas, breast cancer, leukemia, and some other cancers.

• Children with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome have a high risk of developing Wilms tumor, a type of kidney cancer, but they may also develop rhabdomyosarcoma.

• Neurofibromatosis, also known as von Recklinghausen disease, usually causes multiple nerve tumors, but it also increases the risk of rhabdomyosarcoma.

• Costello syndrome is a very rare congenital abnormality. Children with this syndrome have high birth weights but then fail to grow well and are short. They also tend to have a large head. They are prone to develop rhabdomyosarcomas as well as other tumors.

These conditions are rare and account for only a small fraction of rhabdomyosarcoma cases. But they suggest that the key to understanding rhabdomyosarcoma will come from studying genes and how they work in very early life to control cell growth and development.

Last Medical Review: 09/08/2009
Last Revised: 09/08/2009