1. ¹Division of Pathology, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA, USA
2. ²Institut Universitaire de Pathologie, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland

Correspondence: PG Chu, MD, PhD, Division of Pathology, City of Hope National Medical Center, 1500 East Duarte Road, Duarte, CA 91010, USA. E-mail: pchu@coh.org

Received 25 April 2003; Revised 12 August 2003; Accepted 17 October 2003; Published online 19 December 2003.

Abstract

We report two cases of intraneural synovial sarcoma. The first patient is a 46-year-old female who presented for several months with soft-tissue mass in the right infra-auricular region. The second patient is a 11-year-old girl who fell and then presented with pain in the area innervated by the right C7 spinal root and a nodule identified in the nerve root foramina. Both lesions were of small size and presented with features of synovial sarcoma. A biphasic variant was found in case 1 and a monophasic variant was present in case 2. Immunohistochemical studies were performed to confirm the diagnosis, excluding the main differential diagnoses, namely schwannoma and malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor. Ultrastructural study was performed in case 2 allowing exclusion of other possible diagnoses. Molecular studies were performed on paraffin-embedded tissue in both cases and revealed the known characteristic t(X;18)(SYT-SSX) translocation.