Postradiation sarcoma: morphological findings on fine-needle aspiration with clinical correlation

The current study was conducted to describe the clinical features and presentation, cytomorphological characteristics with histological correlation, and prognosis of patients who undergo fine-needle aspiration (FNA) for postradiation sarcoma (PRS).

A retrospective review was performed of 13 individual patients who were pooled from the FNA services of 3 academic institutions between 2001 and 2012. Cases were reviewed for the primary tumor, radiation history, latency period, and other distinguishing clinical features. The frequency of the various cytological preparations as well as the use of immunohistochemistry (IHC) on this material were reviewed. The cytopathology diagnosis was compared with the resection diagnosis, and the survival time was reviewed.

The median age of the patients was 61 years (range, 35 years-94 years) and no significant gender predilection was noted. The median latency period was 11 years (range, 5 years to > 50 years). Patients generally presented with large tumors (median, 8 cm [range, 3 cm-12 cm]), and the median survival was 14 months (range, 6 months-46 months). Nine of 13 patients died of their disease and 1 was lost to follow-up. The tumors were morphologically heterogeneous. IHC played an important role in excluding other diagnoses in those cases in which sufficient material was available.

PRS is a morphologically heterogeneous entity that can be diagnosed by FNA. It is a diagnosis of exclusion that requires a history of therapeutic radiation and often requires IHC to rule out locally recurrent malignancy.