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Table of Contents
Definition / general | Essential features | Sites | Clinical features | Case reports | Treatment | Microscopic (histologic) description | Microscopic (histologic) images | Positive stains | Negative stains | Differential diagnosisCite this page: Angiosarcoma of colon. PathologyOutlines.com website. http://www.pathologyoutlines.com/topic/colontumorangiosarcoma.html. Accessed July 14th, 2017.
Definition / general
- Aggressive vascular neoplasm that is very rare in the gastrointestinal tract, either as a primary or as a metastasis
Essential features
- Rare and often fatal vascular malignancy
- Sheets of malignant epithelioid cells with subtle cleft formation, suggesting vascular differentiation
Sites
- May be slightly more common in the small intestine than the large intestine
Clinical features
- Median age 57 years (Am J Surg Pathol 2004;28:298)
- Symptoms include anemia, intestinal bleeding and pain
- Primary lesions more commonly reported than metastases
- Often fatal
Case reports
- 71 year old man with hepatic angiosarcoma metastatic to colon (Arch Pathol Lab Med 2001;125:968)
- 77 year old man with rectal bleeding and obstruction (Dis Colon Rectum 2004;47:2202)
Treatment
- Resection, chemotherapy, radiation
Microscopic (histologic) description
- Sheets of malignant epithelioid cells with subtle cleft formation, suggesting vascular differentiation
- Can have pseudogladular elements, simulating adenocarcinoma
- Rarely well differentiated and more obviously vascular
Microscopic (histologic) images
Images hosted on PathOut servers:
Courtesy of Raul S. Gonzalez, M.D.
Images hosted on other servers:
Pelvic metastasis: cytology, AE1 / AE3
Liver metastasis: H&E, CD34
Positive stains
- Vascular markers (CD31, CD34, Factor VIII), usually AE1 / AE3
Differential diagnosis
- Primary or metastatic poorly differentiated carcinoma: negative for vascular markers
- Melanoma: positive for S100
- Florid vascular proliferation due to prolapse or intussusception (Mod Pathol 2001;14:1114): minimal atypia; mitoses rare
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