1Sarcomas are tumors that are made up of connective tissue cells. These connective cell tissues are of mesodermal origin, which grow from tissue cartilage, muscles and bones. Sarcoma is derived from a Greek word which means “fleshy growth” (CNN Health/Library). One type of sarcoma involving the lungs is Primary pulmonary sarcoma. This type is so extremely rare that health experts only accounted for 22 patients in the span of 30 years. Radical resection is the only treatment available for this type of sarcoma, of which 82% of the patients undergo operation. Half of them (11 patients) availed of the radical resection treatment.
The rest of the patients who did not undergo radical resection died within the span of seventeen months. In the clinical follow up study done by the members of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, sarcomas involving the lungs of the survivors were found to have different types or grades of sarcoma. Seven of the eleven patients after the resection treatment are still alive at the time of the report (1994). In the diagnosis done on these patients, there were three kinds of sarcomas found on them: four were found to have leiomyosarcoma, two have malignant schwannoma and the other one was found to have fibrosarcoma.
Leiomyosarcoma (LMS) belongs to a group of cancers called soft tissue sarcomas. This subtype occur in people over the age of fifty which starts with the cells of the body’s involuntary muscles like the limbs, the stomach and the blood vessels which suggest that LMS can start anywhere in the body. A schwannoma is a tumor of the tissue covering nerves, called the nerve sheath. Like other sarcomas, this subtype can start anywhere in the body but the common areas are nerves of the leg, of the arm and the lower back called sacral plexus which is painful.
This may also affect the bladder. Although this type of tumor is not often cancerous, there are cases of Malignant schwannoma or which is rare type of tissue sarcoma. Fibrosarcoma is a tumor of mesenchymal cell origin that is composed of malignant fibroblasts in a collagen background (Dickey, Ian D. 2007). These subtypes within the parenchyma, bronchial tree or the pulmonary artery and that which arise in the lung appear to be similar with that of the soft tissue sarcoma.