Mucosal Schwann cell "Hamartoma": A new entity?

Schwannoma is a well-described, benign nerve sheath tumor of the soft tissue, but is rare in the gastrointestinal tract. Gastrointestinal schwannomas are often incidentally discovered as small polypoid intraluminal lesions. In this report, we describe the clinicopathologic and immunohistochemical features of a distinctive neural mucosal polyp composed of a diffuse cellular proliferation of uniform bland spindled cells in the lamina propria that entraps the colonic crypts. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed strong and diffuse positivity for the S-100 protein. To avoid confusion of these solitary colorectal polyps containing pure spindled Schwann cell proliferation in the lamina propria with neural lesions that have significant association with inherited syndromes, it is better to use the designation "mucosal Schwann hamartoma". (C) 2009 The WJG Press and Baishideng. All rights reserved.