Pediatric giant cell tumor of the tendon sheath of the craniocervical junction involving the occipital condyle

Localized pigmented villo-nodular synovitis of trochanteric bursa

This is the first report on a localized pigmented villo-nodular synovitis (PVNS or TSGCT) occurring in the trochanteric bursa. Bursal involvement in PVNS is extremely rare. Most often PVNS occurs either as a localized or diffuse lesion in a major synovial joint, such as the knee, ankle joint or hip joint. In principle, all synovial structures can be involved. The case reported here is remarkable regarding the long period between the occurrence of the first symptoms and the final diagnosis as well as the age of the female patient (75 yrs). Therapeutically a complete resection was performed in order to avoid recurrence. More then three years later the patient did well and there has been no evidence of recurrence yet.

Soft Tissue Special Issue: Giant Cell-Rich Lesions of the Head and Neck Region

Giant cell-rich lesions represent a heterogeneous group of tumors and non-neoplastic lesions, usually arising in bone, which harbor varying number of reactive osteoclastic-type multinucleate giant cells as a common feature. Among these entities, some are confined to the head and neck region (e.g., central giant cell granuloma and mimicking lesions, i.e., peripheral giant cell granuloma and cherubism) or show a relative predilection for this region (e.g., aneurysmal bone cyst and brown tumor of hyperparathyroidism), while others are rare but associated with distinct underlying disease (e.g., giant cell tumor of bone) or histology (e.g., tenosynovial giant cell tumor of the temporomandibular joint and phosphaturic mesenchymal tumor of the jaws) when occurring in the head and neck. Collectively, these lesions pose great challenge in the pathologic diagnosis, which often requires combinatory assessment from the clinical, histopathologic, and/or molecular aspects. This review provides a summary of pertinent clinical and pathologic features and an update of recent molecular and genetic findings of these entities. The considerations in differential diagnosis as well as the effects of the emerging therapeutic RANKL-antagonizing antibody denosumab will also be addressed.