RHABDOMYOSARCOMA OF THE ADULT HEAD AND NECK - A CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL AND DNA-PLOIDY STUDY

We investigated the DNA ploidy patterns in thirteen primary and four r ecurrent rhabdomyosarcomas of the head and neck from thirteen adult pa tients and correlated the findings with other clinicopathological fact ors and clinical outcome. Twelve (92.7 per cent) of the primary neopla sms manifested an aneuploid DNA pattern, five had more than one stemli ne, and one neoplasm displayed a diploid DNA pattern. All recurrent le sions were DNA aneuploid with DNA indices (DIs) corresponding to their primary neoplasms. No correlation between the ploidy pattern and hist ological subtypes, tumour location, clinical stage and patient's clini cal course was found. In this study, only two patients were long-term survivors. Both patients had stage I neoplasms that were located in no n-parameningeal sites which manifested an alveolar histological patter n. Our data indicate that adult rhabdomyosarcomas of head and neck are preponderantly DNA aneuploid and are highly aggressive malignant neop lasms. Our results also suggest that tumours which are low stage and i n a non-parameningeal location may pursue a less aggressive course.