Impact of Surgery and Chemotherapy on Metastatic Extrauterine Leiomyosarcoma

A rare presentation of leiomyosarcoma metastasis to the cervical spine: A case report and a brief review

Background

Leiomyosarcoma (LMS) is a rare malignancy that originates from smooth muscle. The most common sites of metastases include the lungs, liver, kidney, and skin. Notably, metastases of LMS to the central nervous system/or spine are extremely rare. When a cervical spinal LMS lesion was encountered, the patient successfully underwent gross total tumor resection with negative margins.

Case Description

A 63-year-old female had undergone an anterior cervical C5-C7 diskectomy and fusion 18 years ago and resection of a retroperitoneal LMS 3 years ago. She newly presented with right-sided numbness and pain of 2 months duration that correlated with a focal right-sided C5-level hemiparesis (i.e., 4/5 motor strength). When the cervical magnetic resonance demonstrated a right-sided C5 intralaminar mass with extension into the C5-C6 foramen, she underwent posterior tumor resection; pathologically, this proved to be an LMS metastasis. Respectively, 1- and six months postoperatively, follow-up magnetic resonance imaging scans showed no tumor recurrence; she tolerated adjuvant oncological treatment accompanied by physical therapy. However, in one postoperative year, the lesion recurred, and she is presently under consideration for additional surgical management.

Conclusion

Gross total surgical resection is the first line of treatment for patients with metastatic LMS. Here, a patient with a C5 laminar/C5-C6 foraminal bony LMS metastasis underwent posterior tumor resection accompanied by adjuvant oncological treatment but exhibited disease recurrence within one postoperative year.

Cytologic features of metastatic epithelioid uterine leiomyosarcoma to the pancreas

Although uterine leiomyosarcoma (ULMS) is a rare disease, it accounts for a significant proportion uterine cancer-related deaths due to frequent metastasis and chemoresistance. The WHO currently recognizes the conventional (spindle), myxoid, and epithelioid variants of ULMS, the latter of which is the rarest, least understood, and cited as clinically more aggressive than the other variants. Descriptions of the histologic features of epithelioid ULMS are extremely limited, and are absent from the cytology literature which has only published descriptions of conventional ULMS or epithelioid variants of other LMS primaries. Therefore, we present a unique case of metastatic epithelioid ULMS to an unusual location, the pancreas, along with its cytologic features on endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration not previously described including pseudoglandular arrangements, scant cytoplasm, and frequent molding.