Chapters authored
Building Sustainable Capacity for Disease Diagnosis in Sub-Saharan Africa: Case Studies of Cooperation in Diagnostic Pathology
Part of the book: New Knowledge in a New Era of Globalization
Overview on Molecular Markers to Implement Cervical Cancer Prevention: Challenges and Perspectives
Part of the book: Human Papillomavirus and Related Diseases
Uterine Sarcomas: An Updated Overview. Part 1: Smooth Muscle Tumors
Uterine sarcomas (USs) account for 3–9% of uterine malignant neoplasia and about 5% of all gynaecologic malignancies. Despite their low prevalence, these tumors stimulate a great interest because of their aggressiveness, poor prognosis and high mortality rate. According to the last World Health Organization (WHO) classification and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics Committee (FIGO) staging, USs are categorized as pure mesenchymal tumors (endometrial stromal sarcoma, leiomyosarcoma and undifferentiated uterine), and mixed tumors (carcinosarcoma and adenosarcoma). Due to their non-specific signs and symptoms, USs are commonly diagnosed in advanced stage, more often after surgery for a suspected leiomyoma. Although surgery followed by adjuvant therapies represent the common choices for USs, they show poor efficacy due to the early occurrence of metastasis, and the high resistance of tumors to radio-and chemotherapy. Presently, specific expression profiles and new cytotoxic agents are under investigation. In these reviews, we summarized clinical and pathological features, imaging characteristics, therapeutic approaches, genomic and molecular aberration associated with smooth muscle neoplasia (Part 1) and endometrial stromal neoplasia (Part 2); the goal is to understand the biology and the molecular signature of these tumors, in order to focus on their best management.
Part of the book: Neoplasm