Practical morphological approach to the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of soft tissue sarcomas

Sarcomas have long been a source of diagnostic difficulty This has been attributed to their rarity and to the tremendous overlap in their histological patterns. The problem is compounded by the fact that a number of other tumours may show sarcoma-like features. Despite the significant contribution of immunohistochemistry and lately of molecular genetics, in the field of soft tissue tumours, there still exist areas where reliable tumour markers or cytogenetic changes are lacking making conventional morphology the main avenue for diagnosis. In this review, a simple practical morphological approach to the diagnosis of the various soft tissue sarcomas is presented.