Ossifying fibromyxoid tumour of soft parts: report of four cases including one mediastinal and one infantile.

Four cases of ossifying fibromyxoid tumour of soft parts are described. One of them was in the mediastinum, a hitherto unreported location of this rare neoplasm. Another was removed from the subcutaneous tissue of the head of a two-year-old girl, the youngest patient so far described. A peculiar feature of this tumour was haphazard spindle cell groups showing smooth muscle differentiation. One tumour was remarkably proliferative with 20 mitotic figures per 10 high power fields and 50% of cells positive for Ki-67 antigen. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that all the tumours were diffusely positive for vimentin, and focally for S-100-protein. In addition to this the infantile tumour expressed focal alpha-smooth muscle actin, desmin and glial fibrillary acidic protein, while the mediastinal tumour expressed only alpha-smooth muscle actin and the highly proliferative one expressed none of these antigens. Background cells, including histiocytes, lymphocytes and mast cells were numerous. DNA cytometry analysis using both static and flow methods showed that the mediastinal tumour contained two cell clones, while the others were diploid. The proliferative fraction of cells (S plus G2 phases) was prominent in the proliferative and infantile tumours.