A Rare Case Report of Intraosseous Spindle and Epithelioid Rhabdomyosarcoma With TFCP2 Rearrangement: A Pathological Diagnostic Conundrum and Literature Review

Abstract

Rhabdomyosarcoma is a highly malignant tumor with striated muscle differentiation, which is histologically classified as alveolar, embryonal, pleomorphic, and spindle cell/sclerosing histological subtype. Rhabdomyosarcoma with TFCP2 rearrangement, which usually occurs in the bone, is a newly identified rare spindle and epithelioid rhabdomyosarcoma with characteristic clinicopathological features and molecular alterations. We report a 39-year-old female patient who underwent local excision of the mandibular lesion. Microscopically, the intraosseous tumor was composed of spindle-shaped, epithelioid, and rhabdomyoblastic cells with atypical nuclei and atypical mitotic figures. In addition, TFCP2 rearrangement was revealed by the fluorescence in situ hybridization. The tumor was thus correctly diagnosed as rhabdomyosarcoma with TFCP2 rearrangement. The patient was scheduled to undergo radiotherapy, and triple-agent chemotherapy after surgery, and no tumor recurrence or metastasis was detected during the 3-month postoperative follow up. Since this tumor is relatively rare and newly recognized, it can be easily misdiagnosed or missed and might be a conundrum of pathological diagnosis. Familiarity with its clinicopathological features and molecular alterations is essential for its correct diagnosis. Therefore, we summarized the clinicopathological, immunohistochemical, and molecular alterations of 43 cases of this rare rhabdomyosarcoma variant in the English-language literature. In addition, the differential diagnosis of this lesion is crucial either.