[Foetal rhabdomyosarcoma with massive cardiac and placental infiltration associated with intrauterine foetal death]

Rhabdomyosarcoma is a common malignant soft-tissue tumour in children, accounting for 6-7% of all malignant tumours in childhood. Congenital neoplasms are very rare in childhood and represent 2.5% of all paediatric tumours; the intrauterine or congenital diagnosis of rhabdomyosarcomas is extremely seldom. The most frequent locations of rhabdomyosarcomas are the head and neck regions. There are a number of ultrasonographic differential diagnoses. In cases of foetal rhabdomyosarcomas in utero, not only distant metastases but also the possibility of placental infiltration and thus of hypothetical distant metastases in the mother must be taken into consideration because of their metastatic potential. Only very few cases of transplacental penetration of tumour cells and especially of foeto-maternal metastatic invasion, in contrast to materno-foetal tumour cell transfer in the case of maternal cancer disease, have been reported in the literature. We report on a foetal rhabdomyosarcoma of the head and neck area with massive cardiac and placental infiltration associated with intrauterine foetal death in the second trimester. Sonographic features and necropsy findings are described and the differential diagnosis is discussed. Furthermore, diagnostic approaches to rule out a pattern of transplacental metastases are presented.