Clinicopathological characteristics and survival outcomes in patients with angiosarcoma of breast

Abstract

Background: Angiosarcoma of the breast is a rare malignancy. There are little data evaluating the survival and estimating the prognostic factors. The best surgical management and the role of systemic adjuvant therapy remain ill-defined. This study aimed to investigate the clinicopathological features, survival, and prognostic factors of breast angiosarcoma.

Methods: The data on patients diagnosed with breast angiosarcoma were extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (1975-2016). Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were used to estimate the influential prognostic factors. The overall survival (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) of patients with breast angiosarcoma were evaluated.

Results: This study included 656 patients diagnosed with breast angiosarcoma between 1975 and 2016. The 5-year OS rate of all patients was 44.9% (95% CI 40.8-49.0). In both OS and DSS, Kaplan-Meier survival analyses revealed significant differences for both OS and DSS according to age, year at diagnosis, laterality, grade, and stage (all log-rank p < 0.05). Multivariate analysis suggested that lesions of the right breast, poor differentiation, and advanced stage were independent risk factors for OS or DSS (all p < 0.05). Older age was a risk factor in OS, but was protective in DSS. In primary breast angiosarcoma, age, laterality, grade, and stage were independent prognostic factors in OS and DSS (all p < 0.05). Mastectomy was also a risk factor in DSS (p = 0.034). The proportion of patients with grade III and regional disease was larger in the mastectomy group.

Conclusion: Angiosarcoma of the breast had a poor prognosis. In our study, age, laterality, histologic grade, and stage were identified as significant prognostic factors. Why patients with angiosarcoma of the right breast had a worse prognosis remains equivocal. Mastectomy was adopted more often by surgeons in this cohort study for patients with advanced primary breast angiosarcoma.

Keywords: angiosarcoma; breast; risk factor; survival; treatment.