CASE HISTORY

This one-year and 7-month-old boy from Venezuela presented with a massively enlarged soft tissue mass on his back, for several months.

His tumor was initially diagnosed as a high-grade pleomorphic sarcoma. 

In view of the very limited initial response to chemotherapy, the patient underwent surgical resection of his back tumor.

Histologic sections showed a malignant neoplasm containing highly atypical cells and atypical multipolar mitotic figures.

Frequent pleomorphic cells

containing markedly enlarged nuclei, at least 3 times as large as the surrounding neoplastic cells, were present.

Elongated cells with deeply eosinophilic (pink) cytoplasm containing cytoplasmic cross-striations were also noticed.

Tumor cells were positive for desmin (in brown), a protein that signals muscle differentiation.

In addition, his tumor cells were positive for myogenin (also in brown), a protein that more specifically signals skeletal muscle differentiation.

Based on these results, a diagnosis of anaplastic embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma was given, and the patient started receiving chemotherapy tailored to that type of malignant tumor.

Sadly, after getting his wings clipped, this little angel passed away due to complications following surgery.