Mesenchymal chondrosarcoma: an immunohistochemical study of 10 cases examining prognostic significance of proliferative activity and cellular differentiation

Mesenchymal chondrosarcoma is a rare malignant chondrogenic neoplasm that tends to affect young adults and teenagers. The prognosis is unpredictable, and the identification of prognostic markers that could aid in determining the behaviour of this tumour would be helpful. There are few studies in the literature that have attempted to address this issue. In this study, we explored the prognostic significance of three different parameters: (1) tissue morphology of small cell areas, (2) the expression of tumour differentiation marker genes, and (3) the proliferation rate. Our results did not show a correlation of prognosis with the histological features of the neoplastic small cell areas or the expression of tumour differentiation genes. However, the proliferative activity of the tumour cells appeared to have some prognostic significance as related to patient survival. Mesenchymal chondrosarcoma is a rare tumour with a wide clinical range of behaviour. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain reliable prognostic parameters. Nevertheless, our study suggests that proliferative activity may be a useful prognostic parameter for mesenchymal chondrosarcomas.