Gardner's syndrome associated fibromas

Three patients with Gardner's syndrome having benign fibrous proliferations in the soft tissues and the oral cavity are presented. Lesions in all three patients were morphologically different. Two excised lesions in Case 1 were histologically identical to nuchal-type fibroma (NTF) and one lesion in this patient was an epidermal cyst. Case 2 had a lesion located in the soft tissues of the shoulder, which was morphologically similar to NTF and, in addition, contained mildly atypical and multinucleated fibroblastic cells. The oral lesion in Case 3 looked like a fibroma and was morphologically different from all fibrous lesions that have ever been described in Gardner's syndrome. The cases in the present report show that the term Gardner's fibroma is just a descriptive name encompassing a spectrum of morphologically different benign fibrous proliferations associated with this syndrome. Therefore, the term Gardner's fibroma should not be used as a specific name for NTF arising in patients with Gardner's syndrome as suggested in the most recent WHO classification of soft tissue and bone tumors.