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Intratumoural lymphatics in benign and malignant soft tissue tumours

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Abstract

Soft tissue sarcomas do not generally metastasise via lymphatics, and the presence or absence of lymphatic vessels within sarcomas and benign soft tissue tumours is not known. In this study, we determined whether lymphatic vessels were present in a wide range of benign and malignant soft tissue lesions by examining intratumoural expression of the lymphatic endothelial cell markers, Lyve-1 and podoplanin. Intratumoural Lyve-1+/podoplanin+ lymphatics were not identified in sarcomas apart from all cases of epithelioid sarcoma (a tumour which is known to metastasise to lymph nodes) and a few cases of leiomyosarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and synovial sarcoma. Intratumoural lymphatics were also absent in most benign soft tissue tumours. Reparative and inflammatory soft tissue lesions contained lymphatics, as did all (pseudosarcomatous) proliferative myofibroblastic lesions including nodular, proliferative and ischaemic fasciitis, elastofibroma, nuchal fibroma and deep fibromatosis. Our results show that most soft tissue sarcomas do not contain intratumoural lymphatics, a finding which is consistent with the infrequent finding of sarcoma metastasis to lymph nodes. In contrast to fibrosarcoma and a number of other malignant spindle cell tumours, proliferative fibroblastic/myofibroblastic lesions of soft tissue contain intralesional lymphatic vessels.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Mrs. C. Lowe for typing the manuscript. Dr. Mahendra was a Visiting Fellow funded by the government of Sri Lanka.

Conflict of interest statement

We declare that we have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pathology, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Oxford, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Windmill Road, Headington, Oxford, OX3 7LD, UK

    G. Mahendra, K. Kliskey, K. Williams & N. A. Athanasou

  2. Department of Cellular Pathology, John Radcliffe Hospital, Headley Way, Headington, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK

    K. Hollowood

  3. Institute of Molecular Medicine, C/- John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Oxford, Headley Way, Headington, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK

    D. Jackson

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  1. G. Mahendra
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  2. K. Kliskey
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  3. K. Williams
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  4. K. Hollowood
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  5. D. Jackson
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  6. N. A. Athanasou
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Correspondence to N. A. Athanasou.

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Mahendra, G., Kliskey, K., Williams, K. et al. Intratumoural lymphatics in benign and malignant soft tissue tumours. Virchows Arch 453, 457–464 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-008-0660-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00428-008-0660-3

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