Home   Chapter Home   Jobs   Conferences   Fellowships   Books

Advertisement

Skin - Nonmelanocytic tumors

Vascular tumors

Angiosarcoma

Reviewer: Christopher Hale, M.D. (see Reviewers page)
Revised: 16 July 2012, last major update July 2012
Copyright: (c) 2001-2012, PathologyOutlines.com, Inc.

General
=========================================================================

● Also called malignant hemangioendothelioma
● Skin cases are in head and neck of elderly, not young patients, unless also associated with chronic lymphedema or radiotherapy (these lesions are often called lymphangiosarcomas)
● Slow growing but highly aggressive with frequent recurrences that involve extensive areas of face and scalp
● Metastasize to regional lymph nodes, lungs, other organs

Case reports
=========================================================================

● 54 year old woman with “rash” on breast (Proc Bayl Univ Med Center 25;1:70)

Gross description
=========================================================================

● Violet elevated nodules on flat lesion with ill defined margins
● May be verrucoid

Gross images
=========================================================================

       
Scalp, neck and breast lesions

Micro description
=========================================================================

● Infiltrating, freely anastomosing channels lined by spindled to epithelioid endothelial cells with marked atypia, surrounding adnexae and dissecting dermal collagen
● Intracytoplasmic vacuoles represent lumina
● Also areas resembling Kaposi’s sarcoma and undifferentiated foci resembling melanoma or carcinoma
● May have focal granular cell features
● May extend into scalp aponeurosis

Micro images
=========================================================================

   
Various images

Electron microscopy description
=========================================================================

● Features of endothelial cells

Positive stains
=========================================================================

● CD31, CD34

Negative stains
=========================================================================

● HHV8

Molecular
=========================================================================

● Not diploid by flow cytometry

Differential diagnosis
=========================================================================

● Epithelioid variants resemble epithelioid hemangioendothelioma or epithelioid hemangioma
● Squamous cell carcinoma
● Epithelioid sarcoma
● Hamartoma of scalp with ectopic meningothelial elements
● Kaposi sarcoma

End of Skin - Nonmelanocytic tumors > Vascular tumors > Angiosarcoma

This information is intended for physicians and related personnel, who understand that medical information is often imperfect, and must be interpreted in the context of a patient's clinical data using reasonable medical judgment. This website should not be used as a substitute for the advice of a licensed physician.

All information on this website is protected by copyright of PathologyOutlines.com, Inc. Information from third parties may also be protected by copyright. Please contact us at copyrightPathOut@gmail.com with any questions (click here for other contact information).