Extract
Patients commonly present to their surgeon with a soft-tissue mass of an extremity or the torso. With an annual incidence of approximately 300 benign soft-tissue tumors, compared with only two malignant soft-tissue tumors, per 100,000 people in the United States, the majority of orthopaedic surgeons most frequently encounter benign soft-tissue masses. In order to avoid missing one of the 6000 malignant soft-tissue tumors that are diagnosed annually in the United States, orthopaedic surgeons must recognize the features key to differentiating benign from malignant tumors. The purpose of this lecture is to point out those key features and to outline an approach for physicians in evaluating soft-tissue masses.