Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 21, 2015; 21(19): 6088-6096
Published online May 21, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i19.6088
Primary hepatic angiosarcoma: A report of two cases and literature review
Yi-Ping Zhu, Yan-Min Chen, Erik Matro, Ren-Biao Chen, Zhi-Nong Jiang, Yi-Ping Mou, Hong-Jie Hu, Chao-Jie Huang, Guan-Yu Wang
Yi-Ping Zhu, Yi-Ping Mou, Guan-Yu Wang, Department of General Surgery, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310016, Zhejiang Province, China
Yan-Min Chen, Erik Matro, Chao-Jie Huang, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310016, Zhejiang Province, China
Ren-Biao Chen, Hong-Jie Hu, Department of Radiology, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310016, Zhejiang Province, China
Zhi-Nong Jiang, Department of Pathology, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou 310016, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Wang GY and Zhu YP performed the operation; Chen YM and Huang CJ collected the data; Chen RB collected radiological data; Jiang ZN collected pathological data; Zhu YP and Chen YM wrote the paper; Matro E, Mou YP, Hu HJ and Wang GY proofread the paper; Zhu YP and Chen YM contributed equally to this paper.
Supported by Science and Technology Department of Zhejiang Province, No. 2011C13038; and Department of Education of Zhejiang Province, No. N20130411.
Conflict-of-interest: All authors have no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.
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: Guan-Yu Wang, MD, Department of General Surgery, Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, No. 3 East Qingchun Road, Hangzhou 310016, Zhejiang Province, China. wangguanyu@zju.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-571-86006445 Fax: +86-571-86044817
Received: December 8, 2014
Peer-review started: December 9, 2014
First decision: December 26, 2014
Revised: January 26, 2015
Accepted: February 11, 2015
Article in press: February 11, 2015
Published online: May 21, 2015
Abstract

Primary hepatic angiosarcoma (PHA) is a rare malignancy that carries a poor prognosis. Of 1500 patients who underwent hepatectomy for primary hepatic tumors between 1994 and 2013 at our center, two patients were pathologically diagnosed with PHA. Clinical characteristics, treatment modalities, and outcomes of the two patients were collected and analyzed. Both patients underwent hepatectomy and had a postoperative survival time of 8 and 16 mo, respectively. A search of PubMed yielded eight references reporting 35 cases of PHA published between 2004 and 2013. On the basis of the presented cases and review of the literature, we endorse complete surgical resection as the mainstay definitive treatment of PHA, with adjuvant postoperative chemotherapy potentially improving survival. Palliative chemotherapy is an option in advanced hepatic angiosarcoma.

Keywords: Diagnosis, Hemangiosarcoma, Therapy, Surgery, Liver

Core tip: Primary hepatic angiosarcoma (PHA) is a rare malignancy with poor prognosis. Two cases of PHA undergoing surgical resection at our center are presented in this paper. A literature review including 35 cases of PHA is discussed. Preliminary experience suggests that complete surgical resection is the definitive treatment for PHA and adjuvant chemotherapy after surgery might improve survival.