Malignant melanoma of soft tissues (clear cell sarcoma) of the foot. Is MRI able to perform a specific diagnosis? Report of one case and review of the radiological literature.

The magnetic resonance (MR) findings in malignant melanoma of soft tissues, also called clear cell sarcoma of tendons and aponeuroses, have been described as a focal abnormality with a specific MR pattern of increased signal intensity (relative to normal muscle) on T1 weighted sequences and variably decreased signal intensity on T2 weighted sequences (relative to surrounding fat). We have reported here a case of malignant melanoma of soft tissues of the foot, studied with ultrasonography (US) and MR, in which MR showed T1-hypointensity, T2-hyperintensity and marked gadolinium uptake. We have described the relationship between the intracytoplasmic melanin amount of and these atypical MR findings.

A lymph nodal capillary-cavernous hemangioma.

A capillary-cavernous hemangioma in an obturator lymph node was found incidentally in a 64 year-old woman who had undergone unilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and lymphadenectomy for an ovarian neoplasm. Vascular tumors of lymph nodes are briefly reviewed including eight previously described nodal capillary-cavernous hemangiomas. The association with other splanchnic hemangiomas is pointed out and the likelihood that the lesion is a hamartoma rather than a true neoplasm is addressed. Despite its rarity, this entity needs to be recognized by lymphologists who image lymph nodes by lymphangiography as well as by lymph nodal pathologists.

[Lipoleiomyoma of the uterus]. / Il lipoleiomioma dell'utero.

The presence of fatty tissue in the myometrium is anomalous; this alteration has been interpreted either as a lipomatous degeneration or as a metaplasia of smooth muscle cells or, still, as a real neoplasm, frequently associated with a leiomyoma, the so-called lipoleiomyoma. The observation of a case of lipoleiomyoma stimulated us to ascertain the real incidence of this lesion which is commonly considered to be rare. We examined 620 single or multiple uterine leiomyomas with extensive sampling of all the areas suspected to contain fatty tissue islands. Five times out of seven the presence of fat cells in a leiomyoma resulted to be a true lipoleiomyoma. It has thus been possible to ascertain the incidence of lipoleiomyoma versus uterine leiomyomatosis (0.8%). Futhermore we observed a prevalence in menopause, an association with multiple leiomyoma and a preferential onset in the subserosa. The pathogenesis of this lesion, which can be fully ascribed to a mixed, benign, heterologous, mesenchymal neoplasm, is briefly discussed.