Abstract
Because soft tissue sarcoma rarely arises in the oral cavity, there are few reports on this lesion in the head and neck region. Eight cases of soft tissue sarcoma treated at our department during the past two decades were studied clinicopathologically. Some small lesions were clinically given a diagnosis of benign tumor at presentation, followed by excisional biopsy. It was difficult to achieve an exact pathologic diagnosis from the biopsy specimens. The definitive diagnosis based on the resected material differed from the original diagnosis in some cases. Six of the eight cases were subjected to immunostaining to analyze their cytologic characteristics. Alteration of the p53 tumor suppressor gene was detected in 4 cases, and loss of p16 was noted in 5 cases. The average proliferation cell nuclear antigen labeling index of the soft tissue sarcomas was 31.3%, higher than the value for oral squamous cell carcinoma. All soft tissue sarcomas expressed metalloprotease (MMP)-2 and MMP-9 and showed low intratumoral microvessel density. These results suggest that soft tissue sarcomas have high proliferation potential and aggressive growth without angiogenesis.
