Case report

An interesting diagnosis for a presacral mass: case report

Sina Babazadeh¹ , Matthew L Broadhead¹ , John L Slavin² and Peter FM Choong^1,3

¹  Department of Orthopaedics and Department of Surgery, University of Melbourne, St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

²  Department of Anatomical Pathology, St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

³  Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcoma Service, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia

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International Seminars in Surgical Oncology 2009, 6:18doi:10.1186/1477-7800-6-18

Published:	8 November 2009

Abstract

A presacral mass can present a diagnostic dilemma for the surgical oncologist. Differential diagnoses include congenital causes such as teratoma or chordoma, neurological causes such as neurilemoma or neurofibroma or other malignancies such as lymphoma or sarcoma. Diagnosis usually requires imaging such as CT and MRI and tissue biopsy. We present an unusual cause of a presacral mass being extramedullary haematopoiesis, found incidentally in a 71 year old female. Extramedullary haematopoiesis is defined as the production of myeloid and erythroid elements outside of the bone-marrow. This diagnosis is extremely rare in the presacral area especially in a patient with no haematological abnormalities. A review of the literature is presented.