Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Mar 28, 2016; 22(12): 3506-3510
Published online Mar 28, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i12.3506
Primary splenic angiosarcoma with liver metastasis: A case report and literature review
Kai-Feng Yang, Yong Li, De-Long Wang, Jun-Wu Yang, Sen-Yan Wu, Wei-Dong Xiao
Kai-Feng Yang, Yong Li, De-Long Wang, Jun-Wu Yang, Sen-Yan Wu, Wei-Dong Xiao, Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi Province, China
Author contributions: Yang KF and Li Y designed the report; Li Y, Wang DL, Wu SY and Xiao WD had the surgery; Yang JW has helped the bibliography search; Yang KF has done the data collection and then finished the report.
Supported by The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, Jiangxi Province, China.
Institutional review board statement: The research was verified by the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University Institutional Review Board, Nanchang, China.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors announced that there is no conflict of interest exists in manuscript, included personal, political, and others.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Yong Li, MD, Professor, Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University, No. 17, Yongwai Zhengjie, Nanchang 330006, Jiangxi Province, China. yfyly@163.com
Telephone: +86-791-88694131 Fax: +86-791-88694131
Received: July 28, 2015
Peer-review started: July 30, 2015
First decision: September 9, 2015
Revised: September 28, 2015
Accepted: October 17, 2015
Article in press: October 20, 2015
Published online: March 28, 2016
Abstract

Primary splenic angiosarcoma (PSA) is an unusual and highly malignant vascular tumour with a high rate of metastatic. Moreover, the research on prognosis of the disease is poor. The epidemiology, etiology, clinical diagnosis and treatment of the disease remain challenging, because case reports of the disease are few in number. In accordance with other malignant tumors, PSA is very aggressive, and the majority of patients in which this disease is found are at an advanced stage. Almost all patients die within 12 mo of diagnosis irrespective of treatment. We report here a woman who had complained of upper bellyache and anorexia for 10 d. Magnetic resonance imaging showed enlargement of the spleen with multiple heterogeneous masses in the lower pole of the spleen. A hand-assisted laparoscopic splenectomy was performed which allowed histopathologic diagnosis. The patient was diagnosed with PSA and liver metastasis, and succumbed to the disease 35 d after surgery. The literature was finished combined with the clinical features, diagnosis and management of PSA.

Keywords: Angiosarcoma, Immunohistochemistry, Spleen, Splenectomy, Metastasis

Core tip: Primary splenic angiosarcoma (PSA) is an unusual tumor originating from the blood vessel. To date, very few cases of PSA have been reported. We report a woman who had PSA after splenectomy, and liver metastasis was also detected. The patient died 35 d after surgery. We review the literature and conclude that early diagnosis followed by splenectomy is beneficial for better survival of the patients.