title: Two autopsy cases of primary leiomyosarcoma of the liver. Superiority of muscle-specific actin immunoreactivity in diagnosis.
abstract: Two autopsy cases of leiomyosarcoma of the liver in a 49-year-old female and 63-year-old male are reported. Both of the liver tumors showed electron microscopically dense patches in the cytoplasm and intermediate junctions between the tumor cells, suggesting a smooth muscle cell origin, irrespective of their different histological features. The nature of both tumors was confirmed by positive immunoreactivity for muscle-specific actin in the tumor cells, whereas desmin immunoreactivity was labile in both cases, showing a higher diagnostic value of the former compared with the latter in these leiomyosarcomas. Both cases, showed extensive distant metastases in spite of an evident difference in their mitotic indices, indicating that this index is not reliable for judging the metastatic potential of these tumors.
authors.affiliation: 2nd Department of Pathology, Fukushima Medical College, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wakabayashi
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kawaguchi
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suzuki
mesh_terms: D000199:Actins / Q000276:immunology*; D001344:Autopsy; D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000473:pathology; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D007365:Intercellular Junctions / Q000648:ultrastructure; D007890:Leiomyosarcoma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000276:immunology* / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D008875:Middle Aged; D008940:Mitotic Index; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D000199:Actins