Rhabdomyosarcomas

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A rare and aggressive type of cancer that originates in soft tissues, particularly skeletal muscle, presenting as a tumor with varying degrees of differentiation
2. A malignant neoplasm arising from mesenchymal tissues, characterized by primitive muscle cell differentiation, commonly seen in children and adolescents
3. An uncommon form of sarcoma that predominantly affects muscle tissue and may manifest as palpable masses in various anatomical locations, often requiring intense treatment strategies

Etymology: This is a plural, so it is the form of "rhabdomyosarcoma", a medical coinage built from three Greek elements: "rhabdo-" from Ancient Greek "rhábdos", meaning "rod" or "staff", "myo-" from "mûs", meaning "muscle" (literally "mouse", since flexing muscles were thought to resemble mice moving under the skin), and "sarcoma" from the Greek "sárx", meaning "flesh". The word for a cancer of striated muscle therefore describes it as a flesh tumour with rod-shaped muscle cells. Its roots are ancient, but the compound itself is modern. It was assembled from these classical building blocks to name a tumour whose cells look like developing skeletal muscle fibres, a link the ancient Greeks could not have made, since the disease was only described in medical terms much later.

Synonyms: tumors, cancers, sarcomas, malignancies, growths