Right atrial cardiac angiosarcoma treated with concurrent proton beam therapy and paclitaxel: A novel approach to a rare disease

Abstract

Cardiac angiosarcoma is a rare malignancy with an aggressive course and poor prognosis. We present a 26-year old man who came to our clinic with shortness of breath and was diagnosed with a right-sided atrial mass. He underwent urgent resection of the mass. The pathology confirmed the mass to be cardiac angiosarcoma with positive microscopic margins (R1 resection). Since reresection was not feasible, the patient started treatment with concurrent paclitaxel (80 mg/m² weekly) and proton beam therapy (61 Cobalt equivalent delivered over five weeks). After completing the concurrent chemotherapy and radiation therapy, he was treated with adjuvant chemotherapy using gemcitabine (900 mg/m² on Days 1 and 8) and docetaxel (100 mg/m² on Day 8) every three weeks. After three cycles, the patient developed severe dermatitis, and hence further chemotherapy was withheld. The patient is alive at 26 months since receiving his surgery and 18 months since the completion of treatment. Patients with cardiac angiosarcoma who undergo R1 resection have a median survival of six months. More radical approaches such as orthotopic heart-lung transplant or prolonged durations of chemotherapy lead to minimal improvement in survival at the cost of increased morbidity. Here, we describe a novel approach to a rare disease that resulted in prolonged survival and led to a better quality of life without any long-term morbidity to the patient.

Keywords: cardiac angiosarcoma; paclitaxel; proton beam therapy.