Fine‐needle aspiration biopsy of metastatic soft‐tissue sarcomas to lymph nodes

Abstract

This paper highlights the role of fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) in 15 cases of metastatic soft-tissue sarcomas involving lymph nodes. Histopathology reports of the primary tumor were available in all cases. Histological diagnoses correlated well with the cytology reports. The most common type of sarcoma to involve the lymph node was embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (6 cases), followed by synovial sarcoma (2 cases), leiomyosarcoma (2 cases), malignant fibrous histiocytoma (2 cases), fibrosarcoma (1 case), malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (1 case), and rhabdomyosarcoma (1 case). FNAC was thus helpful in the early diagnosis, proper staging, and management. Importantly, it obviated a lymph node biopsy in the majority of cases.

Lymph Node Metastasis of Soft Tissue Tumors

“…However, this study does not give details of frequency of RLNM and other statistics. 3 This study documented most common sarcoma metastasizing to lymph nodes in descending order as embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, synovial sarcoma, leiomyosarcoma and malignant fibrous histiocytoma. The present study is the largest one in the English-language literature, to the best of our knowledge, that highlights cytomorphologic analysis of 19 cases, with an incidence of RLNM accounting for 7.88% of 241 STTs encountered during the study period.…”

“…[3][4][5][6][7] This implies that a clinician should be careful to examine regional lymph nodes in patients with these types of STTs, and whenever the nodes are enlarged they should be subjected to FNA. Given its rarity and the limited awareness on the part of seniors and novices examining patients with STTs, there are high chances of missing the regional lymph node enlargement, particularly at secondary and tertiary health care centers.…”

“…1,2 However, the literature on soft tissue tumors (STTs) metastasizing to lymph node is extremely sparse. 1,3 STTs are rare compared with carcinomas, and lymph node metastasis in their natural progression is an uncommon phenomenon. The reported average incidence varies from 3-5%.…”

Aspiration Cytology of Pulmonary Small Cell Variant of Poorly Differentiated Synovial Sarcoma Metastatic from the Tongue

“…9 There are few reports of PDSS in the cytology literature [10][11][12] as compared to regular SS. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] There is no report on the cytologic features of pulmonary small cell variant of PDSS metastatic from the tongue. When composed mainly of small, round cells on cytologic smears, PDSS is a great mimic of Ewing's sarcoma/primitive neuroectodermal tumour (ES/PNET), with light microscopic and immunohistochemical overlap.…”

Transmission Electron Microscopy of Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsies of Metastases

“…Sometimes the series are too small to be significant. 15 Other series of cases correspond only to specific body organs 12,13,17 or to specific tumor groups. 1,8,17 No specific analysis of the value of TEM on establishing tumor category and tumor type was found in our literature review.…”