Soft tissue angiosarcoma

Histopathology

The histological appearances are variable:

• epithelioid cells in nearly 75% of cases

• vascular spaces vary from cavernous to rudimentary intracytoplasmic lumina.

Immunohistochemistry

antigen/clone	percentage positive
Factor VIII (monoclonal)	90
Factor VIII (polyclonal)	81
CD 34	74
CD 31	33
Fli-1	20/223
Vimentin	98
Cytokeratins	35
AE1/AE3/CK1 cocktail	45
Cytokeratin 1	59/814
EMA	0
Laminin	55

Differential diagnosis

• anaplastic large cell lymphoma

• melanoma

• poorly differentiated carcinoma

• epithelioid and spindle cell haemangiopericytoma

• Kaposi's sarcoma

Management

Prognosis

The tumour is aggressive with a median survival of 11 months.

References

¹ Meis-Kindblom JM, Kindblom L-G.  Angiosarcoma of soft tissue.  A study of 80 cases.  Am J Surg Pathol 1998;22:683-97.

² Adv Anat Pathol 1998;5:327.

³ Folpe, A. L., Chand, E. M., Goldblum, J. R., Weiss, S. W. Expression of Fli-1, a nuclear transcription factor, distinguishes vascular neoplasms from potential mimics. Am J Surg Pathol 2001;25:1061-1066.

⁴ Chu, P. G. and L. M. Weiss (2002). "Keratin expression in human tissues and neoplasms." Histopathology 40(5): 403-39. (Summary data from multiple papers)

This page last revised 8.2.2006.