Clinicopathological Analysis of 34 Cases of Glomus Tumor with a Focus on the Relationship between Mucin Deposits and Expression of CD34

Abstract

The glomus tumor is known to assume various pathological forms. It is often accompanied by mucin deposits in the stroma. According to the past reports, glomus tumors with mucin deposits express CD34, whereas those with no mucin don’t. A total of 34 samples (33 patients) diagnosed at Department of Dermatology, Keio University School of Medicine, within the past 27 years were classified using the diagnostic algorithm advocated by Enzinger et al and Andrew et al. Along with clinicopathological analysis, the correlations between myxoid changes and responses to immunohistochemical stains were studied. Myxoid changes were observed in 19/34 samples with H-E stain. These 19 cases expressed CD34 and didn’t express factor-VIII. All 9 cases with abundant mucin deposit in the stroma were of solid type. We speculate that the myxoid changes in glomus tumors occur not as a secondary changes in response to the time course or local environment, but to the differentiation toward fibroblasts.