Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma of the uterine cervix.

Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma is an uncommon tumor occurring mostly in extremities of children and adolescents. This type of tumor located in the uterine cervix has not been reported previously. A case of pure alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma arising from the uterine cervix in a 45-year-old patient and having a very aggressive clinical course is described. The patient presented with rapidly progressive cervical tumor, which was originally diagnosed as mesonephroid adenocarcinoma. She was treated with a radical two-stage surgical procedure and postoperative external beam and intracavitary irradiation. Despite treatment, she developed metastatic disease and died 3 months after the surgery. The aggressive course of the disease at this location was consistent with that of the majority of alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma cases of other sites reported in literature. No standard effective treatment is known for this tumor in adult patients.