Description

The most appropriate name would have been Fibrohistiocytic, Myofibroblastic, Muscular, Vascular, Neural, Adipose, Cartilaginous, and Osseous Skin Tumors. However, this title would have obviously been too wordy to appear on the cover of a book. Another option would have been Connective Tissue Skin Tumors, but some authors only consider mesenchymal tissues to be connective tissue, in which would have resulted in the exclusion of neural tumors from this book due to their neuroectodermal origin. The most famous counterpart of this book is the classic textbook by Frank M. Enzinger and Sharon W. Weiss, Soft Tissue Tumors, already in its fifth edition, used by many pathologist almost on a daily basis. Sharon W. Weiss and John R. Goldblum, the authors of the fifth edition of Soft Tissue Tumors, define “soft
tissue” in Chapter 1 as follows: “Nonepithelial extraskeletal tissue of the body exclusive of the reticuloendothelial system, glia,
and supporting tissue of various parenchymal organs. It is represented by the voluntary muscles, fat, and fibrous tissue, along
with the vessels serving these tissues. By convention, it also
includes the peripheral nervous system because tumors arising
from nerves present as soft tissue masses and pose similar problems in differential diagnosis and therapy. Embryologically,
soft tissue is derived principally from mesoderm, with some
contribution from neuroectoderm.” Applying/accepting this
definition, fibrohistiocytic, myofibroblastic, muscular, vascular, neural, adipose, cartilaginous, and osseous skin tumors may
be included in the gamut/spectrum of soft tissue tumors. We
therefore eventually settled on the title Cutaneous Soft Tissue
Tumors.