Angiosarcoma cutaneo insorto in seguito a trattamento radioterapico di un carcinoma della mammella. Descrizione di un caso e revisione della letteratura

Cutaneous angiosarcomas occurring as a complication of radiation therapy for breast cancer are rare. To the best of our knowledge 37 cases have been reported in english literature during the last two decades. We describe a case of angiosarcoma arising in the skin of a breast previously irradiated for breast carcinoma. The patient, a 74-years old woman, had been treated with conservative surgery and radiotherapy for a pT1N0 infiltrating ductal carcinoma of the left breast in 1993. Nine years later a skin lesion, which was interpreted as a recurrence, arose in the same site. A biopsy obteined from the lesion, and initially considered to be negative for cancer, showed istological features consistent with those of the atypical vascular lesion. Seven months later the same lesion trasfomed in a 5 × 3 reddish mass which at histological examination was diagnosed as an high grad post-irradiation angiosarcoma of the skin of the breast. Data on previously reported post iradiation angiosarcoma of the breast are reviewed; further consideration on differential diagnosis between those lesions and atypical vascular lesions are presented.