Nejo Takahide, Takayanagi Shunsaku, Tanaka Shota, Shinozaki-Ushiku Aya, Kohsaka Shinji, Nagata Keisuke, Yokoyama Munehiro, Sora Shigeo, Ushiku Tetsuo, Mukasa Akitake, Aburatani Hiroyuki, Mano Hiroyuki, Saito Nobuhito
Department of Neurosurgery, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Department of Pathology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Clin Med Insights Case Rep. 2022 Oct 17;15:11795476221131189. doi: 10.1177/11795476221131189. eCollection 2022.
Primary intracranial spindle cell sarcoma is an extremely rare mesenchymal tumor, the molecular pathogenesis of which is poorly understood. Because of the lack of specific markers, diagnosis sometimes relies on ruling out all possible differential diagnoses, often making it difficult to reach a definitive diagnosis. In this case study, we report a 69 year-old female patient for whom the integration of multi-layered molecular analyses contributed to making the diagnosis. The disease exhibited aggressive clinical behavior, requiring two sequential surgeries because of rapid regrowth within a short period. Primary and recurrent tumors exhibited similar histological features, in which spindle-shaped cells arranged in interlacing fascicles without any specific architectures, implicating sarcomatous tumors. In immunohistochemistry testing, tumor cells were immunopositive for vimentin but lacked any specific findings that contribute to narrowing down the differential diagnoses. Seeking further diagnostic clues, we performed DNA methylation-based analysis. The copy number analysis revealed gene amplification and loss of heterozygosity of 22q. Moreover, dimension reduction clustering analysis implicated a methylation pattern comparable to aggressive types of sarcomas. In addition, an in-house next-generation sequencing panel ("Todai-OncoPanel") analysis identified somatic mutations in , and genes. Taken all together, we finally made the diagnosis of primary intracranial spindle cell sarcoma, -mutant, with gene amplification. This case report suggests that even for the tumors with insufficient morphological and immuno-histological diagnostic clues, integration of multi-layered molecular analyses can contribute to making the diagnoses as well as to understanding the rare tumors by elucidating unexpected genetic and epigenetic features.
原发性颅内梭形细胞肉瘤是一种极其罕见的间充质肿瘤,其分子发病机制尚不清楚。由于缺乏特异性标志物,诊断有时依赖于排除所有可能的鉴别诊断,这往往使得难以做出明确诊断。在本病例研究中,我们报告了一名69岁女性患者,多层分子分析的整合有助于做出诊断。该疾病表现出侵袭性的临床行为,由于在短时间内迅速复发,需要进行两次连续手术。原发性肿瘤和复发性肿瘤表现出相似的组织学特征,其中梭形细胞排列成交错束状,无任何特定结构,提示为肉瘤样肿瘤。在免疫组织化学检测中,肿瘤细胞波形蛋白免疫阳性,但缺乏有助于缩小鉴别诊断范围的任何特异性表现。为了寻找进一步的诊断线索,我们进行了基于DNA甲基化的分析。拷贝数分析显示22q基因扩增和杂合性缺失。此外,降维聚类分析提示一种与侵袭性肉瘤类型相当的甲基化模式。此外,一项内部下一代测序panel(“东大肿瘤panel”)分析在、和基因中鉴定出体细胞突变。综合所有结果,我们最终做出了原发性颅内梭形细胞肉瘤、-突变型伴基因扩增的诊断。本病例报告表明,即使对于形态学和免疫组织学诊断线索不足的肿瘤,多层分子分析的整合也有助于做出诊断,并通过阐明意外的遗传和表观遗传特征来了解这些罕见肿瘤。