Chondrosarcoma of the Extraskeletal Soft Tissues A REPORT OF SEVEN CASES AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

In 1870 Paget first described cartilage tumors arising iii “soft tissues completely detached from bone or normal cartilage. ” These lesions, which frequently are benign, arise in the extraskeletal soft tissue and are usually less than two ceiitimeters in diameter. However, instances of larger (up to four centimeters) benign cartilage tumors of the soft tissue have been recorded 4,6,16, The paucity of reports on malig-nant cartilage tumors arising in the extraskeletal soft tissues would indicate that this is a rare lesion. Three published reports which included more than 1,000 cases of soft-tissue tumors recorded no extraskeletal chondrosarcomas. Three pathological text books 1,2,21 make no mention of extraskeletal chondrosarcon3a. Coley, in his book, mentioned this lesion but stated that he had not seen a case..Jaffe reported two cases in his book. One of these is Case 1 in our series. In their comprehensive report, Stout and Verner discussed seven chondrosarcomas arising in soft tissue and seven cases were also reported by Kauffman and Stout. It should be noted, however, that Case 1 in the Kauffman and Stout series was reported as Case 7 by Stout and Verner. Only a few isolated case reports of extraskeletal chon-drosarcoma have been published 13. 19, 20,22#{149} The purpose of this presetitation is to review the nineteen reported cases and to record seven additional cases of chondrosarcoma arising in the extraskeletal soft tissues. From an analysis of these cases, it was hoped that the lesion would be better defined and hence more often considered in the differential diagnosis of soft-tissue tumors. In accordance with the criteria established by Stout and Verner for the diagnosis of extraskeletal chondrosarcoma, we excluded from this study other cartilage-containing malignant tumors, such as teratomas, mesenchymon3as, and extraskeletal osteogenic sarcomas. Also excluded were chondrosarcomas which arise from periosteum and normal extraskeletal cartilage as in the tracheobronchial tree and nasal passages