Histiocytic Sarcoma Secondary to Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors: A Literature Review

Histiocytic sarcoma (HS) is a rare tumor that may result from the transdifferentiation of preexisting hematolymphoid neoplasms in a subset of patients. There are instances of correlation or concurrence between HS and a number of cancers, particularly B-cell-associated hematopoietic tumors. Only three cases of HS occurring subsequent to or concurrently with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) have been recorded. Our main objective was to give an overview of demographics, clinical signs and symptoms, histopathological findings, and immunohistochemical and molecular analysis when HS develops secondary to or concurrently with GIST. A search of PubMed, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect was undertaken using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) keywords. According to the findings of our review, there were two males (66.6%) and one female (33.3%). The average age of patients at presentation was 59.6 years. On the immunohistochemistry, three patients were positive for cluster of differentiation (CD) 68 (100%), two patients were positive for CD 163 (67%), one patient was positive for leukocyte common antigen (LCA) (33%), and only one patient was positive for CD 4, CD 10, CD 31, CD 45, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DR, lysozyme, and vimentin (33%). On molecular investigation, the gastric mass of only one patient (33.33%) contained a KIT mutation on exon 11. Emperipolesis was observed in one patient (33.33%) on histological examination. Our study provides an important overview of the available literature and gives insight into important diagnostic markers of HS when it occurs secondary to or concurrently with GIST.