Letter to the editor: Response to Drs. Pritchard and Malone

✍ Scribed by Steckel, Richard J. ;Applebaum, Harry ;Frost, Daniel B. ;Kagan, A. Robert

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1990
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 76 KB
• Volume: 18
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0098-1532
• DOI: 10.1002/mpo.2950180120

✦ Synopsis

letter to the Editor: "liver Mass in a 4 Year Old Child: . . . . ? I by Applebaum et ale, 1987

In the Discussion section of this report, Applebaum et al. suggest that "extensive tumour necrosis" could explain the normal serum alpha fetoprotein in their patient with an embyonal sarcoma (mescnchymoma) of the liver [l]. In fact, and in contrast to hepatocellular tumours, serum AFP levels are never raised above the normal range for age in children with pure mesenchymal tumours-whether benign or malignant [2,3]. The reason is, of course, that alpha FP is synthesized in normal, reactive and malignant hepatoblasts/hepatocytes but not in the connective tissue elements of the liver which sarcomas/mesenchymomas are assumed to arise.