[Placental metastases from a maternal angioblastic sarcoma of the vagina (author's transl)]

Metastasizing maternal tumors during pregnancy with spread to the placenta are spontaneous attempts of malignant tumor transplantation to the Fetus. Because of the resistance of the Syncytiotrophoblast to metastases, carcinomas do not appear to transgress the placental barrier wheras malignant melanomas and sarcomas may do so in some cases. In the described case of maternal angioblastic sarcoma the lack of resistance to tumor spread of the epithelial trophoblast was compensated by resistance of the fetal stroma of the chorionic villi against invasive spread of the tumor. The infant was delivered by Caesarean Section and showed no evidence of a malignant tumor acquired by transplacental spread at the age of 2 1/2 months.