Two Case Reports of Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma with Primary Presentation in the Ear

Introduction The primary purpose of this paper is to alert otolaryngologists to embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, a disease which occurs in childhood and which is insidious in onset. It is extremely serious if not discovered and treated very early in its course. Embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, under the name of sarcoma botryoides, was once thought to be limited to the pelvic region. With more advanced techniques, however, pathologists have been able to show that this type of tumor occurs also in the head and in the neck.¹,² Three important facts about embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma have a direct bearing on differential diagnoses of tumors of the head and neck in children, namely, (1) the disease occurs most frequently in childhood between the ages of 1 and 6 years; (2) the primary presentation is usually a tumor, and (3) the common sites of occurrence are in the region of the auricle, the orbit, the nasopharynx, and