Those sarcomas that affect children and young adults fall into four major groups:

• Two groups are bone sarcomas: Ewing's Sarcoma and Osteosarcoma
• Two groups are soft tissue sarcomas:  rhabdomyosarcoma, a tumor of skeletal muscle, and other soft tisse sarcomas , usually lumped as non-rhabdomyosarcoma soft tissue sarcomas.

Although all the sarcoma groups are somewht heterogeneous, this las group is a grab-bag of diverse turmors with unique characteristics including synovial sarcoma, fibrosarcoma, malignant fibrous histiocytoma and malignant peripheral nerve sheath tomor.