Anaplastic myoepithelial carcinoma of the sinonasal tract: an underrecognized salivary-type tumor among the sinonasal small round blue cell malignancies? Report of one case and a review of the literature

We present a 45 year old female patient with a nasal carcinoma showing high-grade/anaplastic histomorphological features and with a distinct myoepithelial immunohistochemical phenotype including positivity for smooth muscle actin, p63, S100 protein with no sustentacular pattern, calponin, cytokeratin 14, vimentin and cytokeratins (AE1-3 and CK5/6). A minority (<5%) of the cells showed focal and variable immunoreactivity for EMA with no cuticular/canalicular pattern. Bcl-2, CD99, CD117 and CD56 were variously positive, but chromogranin and synaptophysin were negative. Weak to moderate nuclear p53 immunoreactivity was seen in 50% of tumor cells. Mib-1/Ki-67 showed an average proliferation of 60-70%. Fluorescent in situ hybridization revealed no EWS-gene translocation. In situ hybridization for EBER was negative.