METHODS
Totally 84 uterine sarcoma cases were re-examined. Recurrence, metastasis, and prognostic data were
collected from the patient files. Immunohistochemistry panel consisting of CD10, h-caldesmon, and
cyclin D1 was applied to the representative tumor tissues. The relationships between the parameters
studied were evaluated statistically.
RESULTS
Statistically significant differences were found between different histopathological types of uterine sarcomas
(US) in terms of age distribution, tumor diameter, mitotic index, necrosis, depth of myometrial
invasion, cervical, adnexial and/or omental involvement, lymphovascular invasion, lymph node metastasis,
recurrence, and distant metastasis. Statistically significant correlation was determined between the
prognosis of the patients and mitotic activity of their tumors and the presence of distant metastasis. The
immunohistochemistry panel was found to have significant contribution to the histomorphological examination
in the differential diagnosis.
CONCLUSION
Routine use of CD10, h-caldesmon, and cyclin D1 in the histopathological evaluation of US and establishing
an updated standard checklist was thought to be beneficial for the differential diagnosis and
reporting prognostic parameters.
Keywords: Adenosarcoma; carcinosarcoma; endometrial stromal sarcoma; leiomyosarcoma; undifferentiated uterine sarcoma
Carcinosarcoma has been reclassified as a differentiated
or metaplastic form of endometrial carcinoma
based largely on its invasion pattern. However, since
carcinosarcoma exhibits more aggressive behavior
than classical endometrial carcinoma, besides being
classified separately as mixed epithelial and mesenchymal
tumors according to the 2014 WHO classification,
it is still among USs in most retrospective studies.[
The strongest prognostic factor in USs is reported as
stage. In addition, factors such as age, tumor diameter,
mitosis and necrosis are also associated with prognosis.
Due to the rarity of USs, their evaluation in prospective
randomized studies is limited. There are limited case
series in the literature that includes all USs.
Our retrospective study provides the advantage of
redefining the cases between 1998 and 2014 in terms of
subtyping. If this study was planned prospectively, the
estimated time to reach statistically sufficient number
of cases in terms of diagnosis and prognostic factors
would be too long.[
In our institution, immunohistochemical tests such
as CD10, cyclin D1, h-caldesmon, p53 were not used
routinely in subtyping USs. While evaluating these cases,
we completed cases for which immunohistochemical
examinations were incomplete. Thus, all the cases evaluated
were classified as current and standardized.
While the treatment methods used were only surgery
in the past, the guidance of the pathology report on this
issue is more important with the inclusion of chemotherapy
and radiotherapy among the current treatments.
Immunohistochemical examinations may be more important
not only for subtyping but also for future treatment
of patients. According to the current literature, it
was thought that such a study would contribute to the
literature in terms of retrospective subtyping in USs, the
place of immunohistochemical studies in differential diagnosis
and the information that should be included in
the pathology report as prognostic parametres.
Eighty-four cases were re-examined histomorphologically; tumor diameter, necrosis, mitosis, heterologous elements, myometrial invasion, cervix uteri, ovaries and tubas, omentum were evaluated. leiomyosarcomas (LMS), LGESS, HGESS, UUS, AS, and MMMT cases were grouped as younger or older than 50 years of age.
While the tumor diameter was determined as <5 cm, between 5 and 10 cm and >10 cm; values of <10, 10-20 and >20/10 high power fields (HPF) were used for mitotic figures. When choosing these values, current literature information was taken into consideration.
A representative paraffin block of the tumor was selected from all cases for immunohistochemical examinations. Immunohistochemical studies were performed in the automated Ventana Benchmark XT closed device using h-caldesmon (caldesmon [monoclonal], CellMarque, 1: 100 dilution); anti-CD10 (anti CD10 [monoclonal], Ventana, 1: 100 dilution) and cyclin D1 (anti-Cyclin D1 [monoclonal], Ventana, 1: 100 dilution) antibodies.
Histopathological and immunohistochemical evaluation of the cases was made without knowing the diagnosis in order to prevent possible "bias."
The average age of the patients included in the
study was 55.9 (SD: 13.26). Patients were minimum
20-years-old and maximum 81-years-old. Of the cases;
29 of them were under the age of 50, 55 of them were
in the age group of 50 and over. The highest mean age
(65.4 years) was found in the group with MMMT diagnosis
(p=0.000) (Table
Tumor diameters varied between 1.3 and 18 cm for
ESS, 4.5 and 68 cm for LMS, 4 and 22.5 cm for UUS,
1.7 and 15 cm for MMMT, and 4 and 22 cm for AS. It
was observed that 90% of the cases in the UUS group
had a tumor diameter over 10 cm. The tumor diameter
was <5 cm in 63.2% of the cases in the LGESS group
(p=0.001) (Table
There was a statistically significant difference in
mitotic count between LGESS and other high-grade sarcomas. High-grade sarcomas had higher mitotic
counts. Mitotic index was >20/10 HPF in 48.8% of
our cases. In the LGESS group, it was noted that the
mitotic index was ?15/10 HPF in 89.5% of the cases
(p=0.008) (Table
Tumor necrosis was observed in 66.7% (51/84) of
our cases. It was seen in all cases with UUS (100%) diagnosis,
in 20 cases with LMS (87%), in eight cases with
the diagnosis of MMMT (40%), and in one of the cases
with the diagnosis of adenosarcoma (33.3%). The sarcoma
subgroup in which tumor necrosis was most common
was UUS followed by LMS (p=0.000) (Table
Histopathological evaluation in terms of myometrial
invasion could be done in 73 cases. While deep myometrial invasion was detected in 68.5% (50/73) of total
cases; superficial myometrial invasion was observed in
62.5% (10/16) of the cases in the LGESS group. Deep
myometrial invasion was found in 6 (37.5%) cases with
LGESS; in 7 (87.5%) of the HGESS cases; in 14 (77.8%)
of the LMS cases; in 9 (90%) of the UUS cases; in 13
(65%) of the MMMT cases and in 1 of the cases diagnosed
with adenosarcoma (p=0.024) (Table
Cervix uteri involvement was observed in two of
the cases diagnosed with HGESS; in three of the cases
diagnosed with LMS; in four of the cases with UUS
diagnosis; in 9 of the cases with MMMT diagnosis; in
one of the cases diagnosed with adenosarcoma. Cervical
stromal invasion was detected in 45% (9/20) of our MMMT patients and in 40% of our patients diagnosed
with HGESS (2/5) and UUS (4/10). Cervical involvement
was not observed in any of our patients with a
diagnosis of LGESS (p=0.025) (Table
In terms of the stages of the cases versus histopathological
diagnoses; our cases were in stage IV disease
with a rate of 17.9% (15/84). It was observed that these
patients were predominantly in the UUS, MMMT and
LMS groups (p=0.123) (Table
In our study, the follow-up periods of our patients ranged from 2 to 152 months; the average follow-up time was 27.5 months (SD: 32.7). Ten patients died during this follow-up period. While a mitotic figure of >10/10 HPF was observed in histopathological examination in 10 of our patients who died, 9 of them had deep myometrial invasion.
A statistically significant difference was found between
the mean survival time (114.9 months) of the
patients in the stage I-II group and the mean survival
time (91.5 months) of the patients in the stage III-IV
group (p=0.026) (Table
Coming to the relationship between distant organ
metastases and survival of the cases; a statistically significant
correlation was found between the prognosis
of the patients and the presence/absence of distant organ
metastases (p=0.005) (Table
Lymphovascular invasion was observed in 17
(20.2%) cases. The diagnostic groups in which LVI was
most frequently observed were MMMT (35%) and
LGESS (26.3%) (p=0.33) (Table
Last but not the least immunohistochemical findings
were evaluated strong and diffuse immunoreactivity
was detected with h-caldesmon in 34.8% (8/23)
of the LMS cases, and focal positive immunoreactivity
in 3 (13%) of them. H-caldesmon expression was observed
in one case of each from the UUS and MMMT groups. No positivity was observed in any case of the
ESS group (p=0.008) (Table
With CD10 staining, 52.6% (10/19) of LGESSs
showed diffuse and strong positivity while 21.1%
(4/19) showed focal positive immunoreactivity. CD10
expression was remarkable in 4 patients in the UUS
group, 3 patients in the MMMT group, and 1 patient
of the each LMS and AS groups among other diagnosis
groups (p=0.002) (Table
Cyclin D1 positivity was observed in 50% of the
cases detected at advanced stage. With cyclin D1,
55.6% (5/9) of HGESS cases showed diffuse and strong
(>70% cells) positive immunoreaction. There were rare
positive cases in other diagnostic groups (p=0.002)
(Table
Diffuse/strong positive intranuclear immunoreactivity with p53 was detected in 50% (11/22) of the cases in the LMS group. However, no significant correlation was observed between p53 immunoreactivity and survival of the patients in this group.
The histopathological/immunohistochemical results
of our cases that were found to be statistically significant
are summarized in Table
Examples of different histopathological subtypes of
USs and immunohistochemical results are presented in
Figures
LGESS: Low grade endometrial stromal sarcomas.
LGESS: Low grade endometrial stromal sarcomas.
HGESS: High grade endometrial stromal sarcomas.
Most of the series in the literature consist of limited
number of patients. This is because USs are rare.
In two large reviews by D'Angelo and Prat (2010) and
Gadducci et al. (2011),[
The largest series published to date on USs is the
study of Nordal et al.[9] In this study, the incidence
and survival of USs were investigated by following the
Norwegian female population for 37 years. In another
study of Norwegian origin, by Abeler et al.[
Considering the age distribution of USs, it is noteworthy
that they generally occur in advanced ages. In
the study conducted by Gao et al., the mean age in the
premenopausal group of ESS was 45; MMMT has always
been reported in the age of 50 or over.[
There are studies in the literature showing that tumor
diameter is related to prognosis in USs.[
Both parameters are valuable for differential diagnosis
when USs are evaluated in terms of the number
of mitoses and necrosis they contain. High mitotic activity
(>10/10HPF) is more common in UUS and LMS.
High mitotic activity is a factor used for differential
diagnosis in USs and associated with poor prognosis.
Again, the absence of necrosis in LGESS is a valuable
parameter used in the differential diagnosis of USs. In
our study, all of the cases died during the follow-up period
had high mitotic activity.
The depth of myometrial invasion has also an important
effect on prognosis.[
Most studies on USs highlight the stage as the most
important prognostic factor.[
In the study of Pautier et al.[
Comparison of IHC analysis in different studies on
USs is still open to debate. The contradictions in immunoreactivity
results reported in many studies might
be the result of the variability of antibody clones, dilutions
of antibodies, different staining techniques, and
different patient populations. In addition, threshold
values for positive immunoreactivity are not always
clearly defined in the literature and therefore results
may be variable.[
Lee et al.[
Emphasizing that the diffuse strong cyclin D1 immunoreactivity
was observed in a correlated way in
HGESS with YWHAE-FAM22 genetic fusion; a diagnostic
algorithm including morphological and immunophenotypic features is proposed to identify ESS with
uterine YWHAE-FAM22 genetic fusion.[
Cyclin D1 immunoreactivity has been previously
evaluated by Kurihara et al.[
An important subgroup of Ewing sarcomas can also
show diffuse strong nuclear cyclin D1 immunoreactivity.[
In our study, one out of eight cases diagnosed with
HGESS and whose prognostic information could be
reached was lost during the follow-up period and this
case showed negative immunoreaction with cyclin D1.
Unfortunately, we have no fascility for molecular genetic
studies of our cases at our institution yet.
On the other hand, Koivisto-Korander et al.[
In our study, diffuse/strong positive intranuclear
p53 immunoreactivity was observed in 50% (11/22) of
the cases in the LMS group. However, there was no statistically
significant relationship between p53 immunoreactivity
and survival of the patients in this group.
The differences between these results might be due to
the fact that the studies were performed with a small
number of LMS cases and the dilution of antibodies
used in immunohistochemical studies.
Chemotherapeutic agents are also used in addition
to surgical treatment in Uss.[
The limitations of this study include the small number
of cases, as in other studies, and the necessity to
adhere to the incidence in histopathological diagnostic
groups. Therefore, it might not be possible for significant
prognostic factors found in larger case series to be
evident in our case series.
In the light of the results we obtained in our study,
an algorithm for the differential diagnosis and a report
format for classification and reporting of these
cases, which are quite rare in our daily practice, was
prepared for the purpose of standardization in our
department. In the commentary part of the report,
it was recommended to re-emphasize the risk factors
associated with case-specific recurrence and prognosis.
In addition, a genetic study was planned for molecular
investigation.
Peer-review: Externally peer-reviewed.
Conflict of Interest: All authors declared no conflict of interest.
Ethics Committee Approval: The study was approved
by The Kocaeli University Non-Invasive Clinical Research
Ethics Committee (No: KÜ GOKAEK 2018/20.18, Date:
26/12/2018).
Financial Support: This study has received no financial
support.
Authorship contributions: Concept - S.K.Ö.; Design -
S.D.Ö., S.K.Ö.; Supervision - S.D.Ö., S.K.Ö., G.T.; Funding
- S.D.Ö., S.K.Ö.; Materials - S.D.Ö., S.K.Ö., G.T.; Data collection
and/or processing - S.D.Ö., S.K.Ö., G.T.; Data analysis
and/or interpretation - S.D.Ö., S.K.Ö.; Literature search
- S.D.Ö., S.K.Ö.; Writing - S.D.Ö., S.K.Ö.; Critical review -
S.D.Ö., S.K.Ö.