Adult Pleomorphic Rhabdomyosarcoma: Case Report

Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) is a rare and aggressive malignant soft-tissue sarcoma (STS) arising from skeletal connective tissues, most commonly seen in the pediatric population.The pleomorphic subtype is mostly seen in adults in the sixth and seventh decades of life, representing 1% of all histological types of RMS, having a very poor prognosis. This report presents the case of a 63-year-old male with medical history of papillary thyroid cancer, who presented an ulcer-hemorrhagic malignant tumor, a poorly differentiated desmin-positive pleomorphic rhabdomyosarcoma (PRMS) with impressive dimensions, located on the posterior thoracic wall, which was surgically removed while performing a wide resection, followed by palliative chemotherapy and radiotherapy, relapsed locally, with pulmonary, bone, and lymph node metastases. The peculiarity of this case is represented by the faster-growing feature, aggressive nature and high metastate potential as well as the poor treatment response of the adult RMS. It underscore the need for early diagnosis, multidisciplinary management and exploration of molecular profiling in therapeutic planning.