Angiosarcoma of the Breast
A breast angiosarcoma is a rare type of breast cancer which starts in cells that line the blood vessels within your breast or underarm area.
Angiosarcoma of the breast is a rare entity and it has the worst prognosis of all breast malignancies. It is a highly aggressive tumor and the total mastectomy is the preferred treatment. The development is distinguished by general metastasis.
It can occur due to breast and upper arm radiation treatments, and is apt to grow and spread quickly. Breast angiosarcoma may at first appear similar to a skin rash, infection, or bruising.
The typical presentation is a mass with bluish discoloration of the overlying skin, usually greater than 2 cm in size and locally infiltrative, with ill-defined borders. It has a tendency to affect young women with a mean age of 34 years.
Although radiation therapy-naive angiosarcomas tend to occur in younger patients, they behave similarly to radiation therapy-associated angiosarcomas.
Histologically, the angiosarcomas are divided into well and poorly differentiated categories. In well-differentiated angiosarcoma, the endothelial cells form freely anastomosing, irregular vascular channels, which are lined by flat endothelial cells having enlarged hyperchromatic nuclei and occasional mitotic figures. Sometimes villous papillary formation occurs. Ill-defined borders and local infiltration are essential features. In biopsies, these characters may be absent making correct diagnosis difficult. In the poorly differentiated angiosarcoma the malignant nature is apparent with anaplastic endothelial cells forming complex vascular channels or solid sheets. The latter case often suggests a poorly differentiated carcinoma. A correct diagnosis requires immunohistochemical stain for Factor VIII or endothelial cell markers.
Related posts:
