Dedifferentiated Liposarcoma of Thigh With Chondrosarcomatous Dedifferentiated Component
Richard S. Yoon, BS, Joseph Benevenia, MD, Kathleen S. Beebe, MD, and Meera Hameed, MD
Mr. Yoon is Medical Student, and Dr. Benevenia is Professor and Chairman, and Dr. Beebe is Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–New Jersey Medical School, Newark, New Jersey.
Dr. Hameed is Attending Pathologist, Department of Pathology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York.
Liposarcomas are common soft-issue sarcomas arising predominantly in deep soft tissue and the retroperitoneum with varied mortality and recurrence rates, largely dependent on histologic type. Thought to arise de novo, liposarcomas typically are classified into 5 types based on strict morphologic characteristics: well-differentiated, dedifferentiated, myxoid, round cell, and pleomorphic. More specifically, dedifferentiated liposarcoma, a common type most prevalent in the retroperitoneum, often has 2 distinct components, a well-differentiated lipomatous component and a dedifferentiated nonlipomatous component composed of sarcomas, such as myxofibrosarcomas or other spindle-cell sarcomas. Morphology typically ranges from low- to high-grade components, most commonly exhibiting myxofibrosarcoma and malignant fibrous histiocytoma components. However, the case reported in this article is unique—the dedifferentiated component exhibited only chondrosarcomatous differentiation—and it is, to our knowledge, the first such case to be described.