Rhabdoid phenotype in cutaneous squamous carcinoma: an earlier report!
- 1Department of Pathology, Manipal Hospital, Airport Road, Bangalore 560 017, India s_pai{at}vsnl.com
- 2Department of Pathology, Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, Bombay (Mumbai )-400012, India
We read with interest the case report by Mathers and O'Donnell on squamous carcinoma of the skin with a rhabdoid phenotype.1 The authors have indeed beautifully demonstrated the squamous histogenesis in their tumour. However, we are surprised by their statement that this is the “first case of cutaneous malignant rhabdoid tumour showing clear squamous histogenesis”.
During their literature search, the authors appear to have missed our paper on a similar topic.2 In 1996, we published a report of two squamous carcinomas with a rhabdoid phenotype. One of them was in the skin of an 85 year old man. The neoplasm had areas of conventional squamous carcinoma as well as large areas with a rhabdoid phenotype. The rhabdoid cells had diastase resistant periodic acid schiff material. The rhabdoid cells were positive for cytokeratin, epithelial antigen, and vimentin, but negative with antibodies to desmin, S-100 protein, and HMB45.
Our abstract clearly contained the words “skin”, “squamous carcinoma”, and “rhabdoid phenotype” and should have been picked up on a MEDLINE search.
The authors reply
- 1Department of Histopathology, Royal Victoria Infirmary, Queen Victoria Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4LP, UK
- 2Department of Histopathology, Freeman Hospital, High Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne NE7 7DN, UK
We thank Pai et al for their interest in our paper “Squamous carcinoma of the skin with a rhabdoid phenotype”.1 We apologise for our omission of their previous paper2 in our review of the literature. However, we are pleased to hear that other authors have described rhabdoid differentiation within a squamous carcinoma of skin, as we feel this represents an important phenotype, which is predictive of a poor clinical outcome.
