This case report demonstrates a 3-year survival without recurrence or metastasis in a patient with primary chest wall angiosarcoma following surgical resection, suggesting variable malignancy levels in angiosarcomas.
Should not alter management after one case; leaves open questions on prognostic variability in chest wall angiosarcoma.
Angiosarcoma is a rare but highly malignant disease. This report presents a 22-year-old male who has survived a primary angiosarcoma arising from the chest wall. The patient had been complaining of anterior chest pain for 3 years. CT and MRI revealed a tumor protruding into the right thoracic cavity from the anterior chest wall but no further findings. First, the tumor was resected using video-assisted thoracoscopy. The pathological diagnosis established from a frozen section was of a benign mesothelioma, but this was changed to angiosarcoma based on findings from a paraffin-embedded specimen. As a consequence, the third rib and intercostal muscles were resected in a second operation. Three years following surgery there was no evidence of tumor recurrence or metastasis. This case supports a suggestion that not all patients with angiosarcomas experience the same level of malignancy.
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Suzuki et al. (1996) studied this question.
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