Clinicomorphological Assessment of Soft Tissue Tumors

Soft tissue is a nonepithelial extra skeletal tissue of the body exclusive of reticuloendothelial system, glia and supporting tissue of the various parenchymal organs. It is represented by the voluntary muscles, adipose tissue and fibrous tissue along with the vessels serving these tissues. They are classified according to the tissue they recapitulate (muscle fat, fibrous tissue, vessels and nerves). The present study comprises of all the soft tissue tumors, both benign and malignant obtained from the teaching institute affiliated to the tertiary health care centre of Madhya Pradesh Government.. Retrospective study was undertaken for a period of 5 years starting from July 2008 to July 2013. The tissue were fixed in 10% formalin and processed through standard paraffin embedding technique. Sections of approximately 5 was taken and stained by routine hematoxylin and eosin. The soft tissue tumours (370 cases) recorded in the department of pathology in 5 years. Benign soft tissue tumours formed 90.6% of all soft tissue tumours while malignant soft tissue tumours constituted 9.4% of all soft tissue tumours with a benign to malignant ratio of 9.4. Malignant soft tissue tumours had a peak age incidence in the 6th decade. Soft tissue tumours in general had slightly male preponderance with a male to female ratio of 1.2 The male to female ratio among the benign soft tissue tumours was 1.2:1 and among the malignant soft tissue tumours was 1.9:1. The benign soft tissue tumour had predilection for extremities and head and neck. Availability of a modern, more logical histopathologic classification and standard nomenclature now offers a better clinico pathological co-relation. The clinicomorphological evaluation is still the gold standard for the proper diagnosis of soft tissue tumors.