Sarcoma botryoides in the pediatric vagina--a soft tissue sarcoma with good prognosis

Although rare, sarcoma botryoides of the vagina in infants is a highly aggressive soft tissue tumour. Former opinions suggesting exenterative surgery and radiation to improve the dismal outcome in these young children, are outdated. Due to balanced therapies (topical tumourectomy, chemotherapy and radiation adjusted to tumour stage) cure of these sarcomas may be expected dependent on tumour stage, localisation and response to chemotherapy. The rate of complete remissions has increased in recent years. We report on an eighteen-month old girl with complete remission of tumour stage IIA who had been treated according to the CWS 91 protocol. Diagnosis and treatment were performed in March 1994 at the age of six months. We observed the patient in complete remission for 8 months (till September 1995).