Congenital soft tissue dysplasias: a morphological and biochemical study.

The term congenital soft tissue dysplasias (CSTDs) regroups some localized malformations of covering soft tissues in children, presenting as various clinical entities, either recognized as particular syndromes (e.g., Parkes-Weber, Klippel-Trenaunay, Proteus) or, most often, appearing less stereotyped (e.g., segmental hypertrophy or gigantism, lymphedema, angiodysplasia, phakomatosis), with a common histopathological lesion, the hamartoma. The aim of this paper is to report a morphological and biochemical study of the extracellular matrix of skin and subcutaneous tissue in children with CSTD. For every patient, pathological tissues were compared with contralateral, symmetrical tissues, taken as controls. In all CSTDs, pathological samples were characterized by an increase in water and total glycosaminoglycan (GAG) content with a decrease in collagen content. Other results lead the authors to distinguish two main entities, segmental dysplasia (SeD) and neuroectodermal dysplasia (NeD). Elastic fiber content was increased in SeD and decreased in NeD. Hyaluronic acid (HA) and dermatan sulfate (DS) were increased in NeD, whereas in SeD, HA was decreased with an increase in the DS/HA ratio. Cultured fibroblasts from dysplastic skin had slower proliferation in vitro than fibroblasts from control skin, whereas their biosynthetic activity concerning collagen and GAGs was greater. The difference in the composition of extracellular matrix supports the clinical classification of CSTDs in two main groups: segmental dysplasia with or without gigantism and neuroectodermal dysplasia (in von Recklinghausen's disease and nevi).