Table 1.

Summary of the cancer types, pathogenesis, and prognostic significance of calcification in malignant abdominopelvic tumors

		Primary	Pathogenesis of calcification	Prognostic significance
Epithelial	Adenocarcinoma	Colon	Unknown	Longer survival
		Ovarian	Usually psammomatous	Worse survival
		Pancreatic	Psammomatous	Unknown
	Neuroendocrine	Small bowel	Fibrosis	Unknown
		Medullary thyroid	Amyloid deposition	Unknown
Mesenchymal	Bone	Osteosarcoma	Mineralization of osteoid matrix	Increases with increased differentiated tumor burden
		Chondrosarcoma	Mineralization of chondroid matrix	Increases with increased differentiated tumor burden
	Soft tissue	Liposarcoma	Metaplasia	Worse prognosis
			Osteosarcomatous or chondrosarcomatous differentiation
		GIST, primary	Intratumoral necrosis	Unknown
		GIST, treated	Unknown	Disease response
Lymphoid		NHL, primary	Necrosis	Aggressive subtypes
		HD, primary	Fibrosis/degeneration	Nodular sclerosing subtype
		NHL or HD, treated	Necrosis	Disease response
		Multiple myeloma	Amyloid deposition	Unknown
Germ cell tumor			Mature elements: teeth, bone, cartilage	Unknown
			Immature elements: necrosis

GIST, gastrointestinal stromal tumor; NHL, non-Hodgkin lymphoma; HD, Hodgkin disease.