Thoracic neoplasms at the Jena reference center for soft tissue tumors.

INTRODUCTION: The Jena Soft Tissue Tumor Reference Center is the major German pathology institute for consultation of malignant mesenchymal tumors. Here, we present the clinicopathological data on thoracic soft tissue tumors of a two-year period.

METHODS: The tumors were analyzed according to their localization, type (soft tissue tumor, other tumor type, non-neoplastic lesion) and biological behavior. The frequency of the defined soft tissue tumor entities were considered after categorizing the cases according to the WHO Classification of Tumors. Gender and age were also assessed.

RESULTS: In total, 1,071 cases of thoracic tumors were recorded within the 2 years. The majority were non-epithelial lesions (75.3%, n = 806/1,071), of which 68.1% (n = 549/806) were malignant or intermediate malignant. 107 non-epithelial lesions involved the lung and 37 the pleura. By far the most common lung and pleural tumors were undifferentiated sarcomas. In the lung, other frequent entities were solitary fibrous tumors, synovial sarcomas and leiomyosarcomas. We also recorded 13 non-epithelial tumors of the heart and 66 tumors of the breast with angiosarcomas being the most frequent subtype. There was a female predominance for vascular neoplasms, while men prevailed for adipocytic tumors.

CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides information about the frequency, distribution, age and gender of patients with thoracic soft tissue tumors including several rare entities. Thus, it may help in the differential diagnosis of these neoplasms. In addition, we present a model highlighting the potential progression of lung carcinoma to undifferentiated sarcoma via the process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition.