ORPHA:99969
Pleomorphic liposarcoma
Also known as: PLS
Clinical definition (Orphanet)
Pleomorphic liposarcoma (PLS), the rarest subtype of liposarcoma (LS), is an aggressive, fast growing tumor located usually in the deep soft tissues of the lower and upper extremities. It is characterized by a variable number of pleomorphic lipoblasts and, in contrast to dedifferentiated liposarcoma, it lacks any association with well-differentiated liposarcoma.
How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.
Is anyone studying this?
1,611
1,611 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=183) is 38.
1,611 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 38 (publications denominator n=183).
1,077 in the last 10 years · low confidence
Is a treatment being tested?
7
trials for this specific condition
7 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 5 currently recruiting in our sample. 127 trials are registered for liposarcoma, the broader category — shown separately because they may or may not enrol this specific subtype.
Data as of 26 July 2026
127
trials for liposarcoma, the broader category this belongs to
Trials registered for a broader category may or may not enrol people with this specific subtype — eligibility criteria vary, and the trial record often doesn't say. Worth raising with a clinician. How we count trials.
7 interventional trials — more than 59.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (151 of 255; this disease is at the 84.1th percentile).
low confidence · 84.1th percentile (trials denominator)
Do we know what causes it?
Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.
No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.
Who's working on it?
1,203
Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.
Who's working on it?
People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.
- 01Wang X6 papers · 2025
Department of Oncology, Women and Children's Hospital Affiliated to Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 02Wang Y5 papers · 2025
Department of Anorectal, The Affiliated Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, CHN.
Papers in Europe PMC - 03Costache M4 papers · 2025
Department of Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, "Carol Davila" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 030167 Bucharest, Romania.
Papers in Europe PMC - 04Dermawan JK4 papers · 2024
Robert J. Tomsich Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Papers in Europe PMC - 05Li Y4 papers · 2026
Department of Orthopedics, People’s Hospital of Pingchang County, Pingchang, Sichuan 636400, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 06Li Z4 papers · 2025
Hebei General Hospital, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China; Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 07Marin A4 papers · 2025
Department of Plastic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, "Carol Davila" University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 030167 Bucharest, Romania.
Papers in Europe PMC - 08Wang Z4 papers · 2026
Department of Medical Oncology, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 09Zhang C4 papers · 2025
Department of Medical Oncology, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Papers in Europe PMC - 10Zhang J4 papers · 2025
Department of Pharmacy, Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200233, China.
Papers in Europe PMC
Recruiting interventional trials
Trials testing a treatment from the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set
7 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.
- NCT06849986·IO Combined With AI as First-line Treatment for Patients With Soft Tissue Sarcoma(TAIS)
- NCT07173972·Dose-escalated, Hypofractionated, Definitive Proton Radiotherapy for Patients With Inoperable Soft Tissue Sarcoma.
- NCT06843967·A Study of Mirdametinib in Combination With Palbociclib in People With Liposarcoma
- NCT06526897·Evaluation of Chest CT Versus Chest X-Ray for Lung Surveillance After Curative-Intent Resection of High-Risk Truncal-Extremity Soft Tissue Sarcoma
- NCT02275286·Trabectedin Plus Radiotherapy in Soft Tissue Sarcoma Patients
Observational and natural-history studies
1 observational study matches this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.
None of the matched observational studies is currently listed as recruiting.
Where to find support
We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:
India — NPRD
Last verified 2026-07-26This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.
Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.
How we counted this
Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored below but are not added to the query string.
"Pleomorphic liposarcoma" OR "pleomorphic liposarcoma (morphologic abnormality)"
ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):
"Pleomorphic liposarcoma" OR "pleomorphic liposarcoma (morphologic abnormality)"
Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).
Study-type breakdown: 7 interventional · 1 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.
Cross-references (from Mondo): UMLS:C0205825 NCIT:C3705
Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase
Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov
Synonyms dropped by stoplist: PLS
Confidence reasoning
- Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
- 1 synonym(s) dropped by stoplist (may under-count)
- No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
- Publication count (1611) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity