Germline Cancer Predisposition Variants in Pediatric Rhabdomyosarcoma: A Report From the Children’s Oncology Group

Li H, Sisoudiya SD, Martin-Giacalone BA, Khayat MM, Dugan-Perez S, Marquez-Do DA, Scheurer ME, Muzny D, Boerwinkle E, Gibbs RA, Chi YY, Barkauskas DA, Lo T, Hall D, Stewart DR, Schiffman JD, Skapek SX, Hawkins DS, Plon SE, Sabo A, Lupo PJ. Germline Cancer Predisposition Variants in Pediatric Rhabdomyosarcoma: A Report From the Children’s Oncology Group. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2021 Jul 1;113(7):875-883. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djaa204. PubMed PMID: 33372952; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8246828.

Several cancer-susceptibility syndromes are reported to underlie pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS); however, to our knowledge there have been no systematic efforts to characterize the heterogeneous genetic etiologies of this often-fatal malignancy. We performed exome-sequencing on germline DNA from 615 patients with newly diagnosed RMS consented through the Children’s Oncology Group. We compared the prevalence of cancer predisposition variants in 63 autosomal-dominant cancer predisposition genes in these patients with population controls (n = 9963). All statistical tests were 2-sided.