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If rhabdomyosarcoma spreads
Cancer cells can spread from where they started to other parts of the body. This is called metastasis.
Understanding how a type of cancer usually grows and spreads helps your child’s healthcare team plan treatment and future care. If rhabdomyosarcoma spreads, it can spread to the following:
- the lungs
- the liver
- the bones
- the bone marrow
- distant muscles
- distant lymph nodes
Tumours that start in the ear, the nose or a sinus often spread to the brain or spinal cord (called the central nervous system, or CNS).
Great progress has been made

Some cancers, such as thyroid and testicular, have survival rates of over 90%. Other cancers, such as pancreatic, brain and esophageal, continue to have very low survival rates.