Scientific exhibits: primary tumors of the soft tissues of the extremities exclusive of epithelial tumors; an analysis of five hundred consecutive cases.

Abstract

This exhibit presents some of the benign and malignant soft-tissue tumors of the extremities, exclusive of epithelial structures and lymph nodes. The tumors are grouped into six categories, one cabinet being devoted to each category. Each cabinet contains six of the more unusual and more important tumors which are considered to be derived from a single basic cell type. The incidence of the six categories, and of the individual tumors within each category, was derived from analyzing 500 consecutive cases of primary soft-tissue tumors of the extremities seen in the surgical pathology laboratory in the interim of approximately 2I/2 years. In this series, 14.6% of all the tumors, including the nonneo-plastic masses, were malignant. I. FIBROMATOUS TUMORS (See Pages 463-464) In our series 12% of the primary soft-tissue tumors were in this group. Sixty-seven per cent of the fibromatous tumors were malignant. The fibroblast is the mesenchymal element from which