Skin Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Skin Cancer, including details on identification, causes, prevention, treatment.

Cutaneous angiosarcoma.

Mendenhall WM, Mendenhall CM, Werning JW, Reith JD, Mendenhall NP

Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL, USA. mendewil@shands.ufl.edu

OBJECTIVE: To discuss the treatment and outcomes for cutaneous angiosarcoma. METHODS: Review of the pertinent literature. RESULTS: Cutaneous angiosarcoma is a rare, aggressive malignancy with a poor prognosis. It usually arises in the scalp or face and is locally advanced at presentation. Patients are most often white, male, and elderly. A subset of patients presents with multifocal disease and/or positive regional nodes. Although the optimal treatment is surgery followed by wide-field radiotherapy (RT), the disease is frequently so extensive at diagnosis that it is not completely resectable. Even after optimal local-regional treatment, there is a relatively high likelihood of a local recurrence at the margins of the RT fields. The probability of hematogenous dissemination is relatively high. Limited data suggest that chemotherapy may be useful for palliation with progression-free survival rates ranging from 1 to 5 months. The 5-year local-regional control rates are approximately 40% to 50%, the 5-year distant metastasis-free survival rates range from 20% to 40%, and the 5-year survival rates range from 10% to 30%. CONCLUSION: Cutaneous angiosarcoma is a rare, aggressive malignancy that is optimally treated with resection and wide-field postoperative RT. The likelihood of local-regional failure is high, as is the risk of distant relapse. Chemotherapy may be useful for short-term palliation.

Published 6 October 2006 in Am J Clin Oncol, 29(5): 524-8.
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