Extraskeletal mesenchymal chondrosarcoma

Radiology. 1993 Mar;186(3):819-26. doi: 10.1148/radiology.186.3.8430193.

Abstract

Among seven patients with extraskeletal mesenchymal chondrosarcoma (EMC), three children (aged 3-6 years) developed EMC in a central location and four adults (aged 38-54 years) developed EMC in both central and peripheral sites. Conventional radiography and tomography and computed tomography (CT) depicted EMC as a soft-tissue mass with ring, arc, stippled, and highly opaque calcifications in four patients. Contrast-enhanced CT showed lobulation and peripheral tumoral enhancement, sometimes with central low-attenuation areas. On magnetic resonance (MR) images, EMC was a lobulated mass with high signal intensity on T2-weighted images and enhancement with low-signal-intensity focal areas on contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images. All adults developed recurrences and/or metastases and died. Of the three children, two were living and free of disease at the end of the study and the third child died of chemotherapeutic-induced leukemia. Although imaging features of EMC are nonspecific, its chondroid-type calcifications and foci of low signal intensity within enhancing lobules may reflect its dual histopathologic morphologic characteristics of differentiated cartilage islands interspersed within vascular undifferentiated mesenchyme.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Chondrosarcoma / diagnosis
  • Chondrosarcoma / diagnostic imaging*
  • Chondrosarcoma / mortality
  • Connective Tissue / pathology
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Soft Tissue Neoplasms / diagnosis
  • Soft Tissue Neoplasms / diagnostic imaging*
  • Soft Tissue Neoplasms / mortality
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed