Primary solid tumors of the great omentum

R in an unusual solid tumor removed from the great omentum of a 5-year-old child (case 9).The question of its nature led to a review of the reported solid omental tumors.The senior author expected that the tumors would probably resemble those found in the mesentery and retroperitoneum.But, to his astonishment, he learned that a majority of the authors could not really identify the tumors they were reporting.After reading a considerable number of papers it became apparent that, while there were a number of very interesting clinical reports, those who made the reports were really baffled as to the cellular nature of the growths.Some simply called the tumors sarcomas or described the shapes of the cells; when they were more definite and used such terms as fibro-lipo-angio-or leiomyosarcoma and gave photomicrographs, the photomicrographs or drawings did not confirm the diagnoses suggested, and the reader was left in a state of uncertainty as to what kind of a tumor was being described and reported.After reading some 20 papers it was realized that it would be impossible to use these reported cases to separate the tumors into their histological types with any idea of linking biological behavior with histological type.It will suffice to quote a number of these case reports in order to make this clear.