Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 March 2011
Although most neuroectodermal tumors are not soft tissue sarcomas, they are important in the differential diagnosis of primary soft tissue tumors. Cutaneous nevi and ordinary cutaneous melanoma are not discussed here, but the reader is referred to other dermatopathology texts such as the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) atlas for melanocytic tumors of the skin. Pigmented neuroectodermal tumor of infancy, extra-central nervous system gliomas, and meningothelial neoplasms relevant to the soft tissues are also discussed. Primitive neuroectodermal tumors belong to the Ewing sarcoma family of tumors and are discussed in Chapter 31.
CELLULAR BLUE NEVUS
The cellular blue nevus (CBN) is a relatively uncommon melanocytic neoplasm that can form a soft tissue mass. It should be distinguished from malignant melanoma and soft tissue sarcoma, especially clear cell sarcoma and malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST). Atypical and malignant forms occur, however, and the latter especially must be distinguished from the indolent variants.
Clinical Features
CBN typically forms a bluish-black cutaneous nodule of 1 cm to 2 cm that can be larger but rarely >5 cm; on occasion the nodule is ulcerated. This tumor often occurs in young adults, occasionally on a congenital basis, and less often in older adults. The average age in the largest series was 33 years, and there was a >2:1 female predominance. Other series have shown an even gender distribution, also with a median age in the early thirties.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.