Primary mediastinal liposarcoma - Clinicopothologic analysis of 24 cases

Liposarcomas are rare in the mediastinum. Here, we report the clinicopathologic features of 24 cases of mediastinal liposarcoma. Patients included 13 males and I I females, with an age range of 3 to 72 years (median 58). Nine tumors were located in the anterior mediastinum, 7 in the posterior mediastinum, I in the superior mediastinum, and the precise location was not specified in 7 cases. Of the anterior mediastinal tumors, 3 appeared to arise from the thymus. Tumors were well-circumscribed, multinodular masses and ranged in size from 2.2 to 61 cm in greatest dimension (median 16 cm). Histologic examination revealed that most of the cases were well-differentiated liposarcomas (10), followed by dedifferentiated liposarcomas (8), pleomorphic liposarcomas (4), and myxoid liposarcomas (2). Of the pleomorphic liposarcomas, 2 had areas that resembled myxofibrosarcoma with atypical hyperchromatic spindle cells in a myxoid stroma, but the focal presence of lipoblasts confirmed the diagnoses. Clinical follow-up was obtained in 15 cases (range I to 59 mo; median 26). Complete surgical excision was attempted in 13 patients; however, local recurrence was common (5 cases), including I patient whose tumor recurred twice. Eleven patients were alive with no evidence of disease at last follow-up (5 well-differentiated, 5 dedifferentiated, and I myxoid liposarcoma). Two patients developed distant metastases (dedifferentiated and pleomorphic liposarcoma). One patient was alive with disease (pleomorphic liposarcoma), and 2 died of disease (pleomorphic and dedifferentiated liposarcoma). Overall, mediastinal liposarcomas appear to be similar, in clinicopathologic terms, to liposarcomas arising in the retroperitoneum.