Clinicopathological and histopathological review of dedifferentiated liposarcoma: a comprehensive study of 123 primary tumours

Aims: Dedifferentiated liposarcoma (DDLS) has varying histopathological features, but their significance for the biological behaviour of this disease has not been fully clarified. The aim of this study was to elucidate the prognostic factors for DDLS by clinicopathologically reviewing a large case series. Methods and results: We clinicopathologically reviewed 123 cases of primary de-novo DDLS without preoperative treatment, including 81 in the internal trunk (internal DDLS) and 42 in peripheral sites (peripheral DDLS). Univariate and multivariate analyses of their features were also performed for all cases, the internal DDLS group, and the peripheral DDLS group. The results showed that, in all three groups, distant metastasis was significantly associated with shorter overall survival (OS) (univariate analysis, P < 0.0001, P = 0.0011, and P = 0.0101, respectively), whereas local recurrence showed no significant effect on prognosis. Histopathologically, a high mitotic count and the presence of round tumour cells were significantly associated with shorter OS in multivariate analysis of the internal DDLS group [respectively: P = 0.0022, hazard ratio (HR) 4.39, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.71–11.28; and P = 0.0014, HR 7.19, 95% CI 2.14–24.16]. In the peripheral DDLS group, necrosis and high-grade histological components were significantly associated with shorter OS (univariate analysis, P = 0.0068 and P = 0.0174, respectively). Conclusions: The presence of round tumour cells may be one of the histological factors associated with a worse prognosis of DDLS patients, as previous studies indicated. This study also suggests that distant metastasis may be predictive of prognosis for both internal and peripheral DDLS, rather than local recurrence.