ANGIOSARCOMA OF THE BREAST AND PREGNANCY - A NEW THERAPEUTIC APPROACH

A case of angiosarcoma of the breast managed primarily by a chemothera peutic approach is referred. A 29-year-old patient presented complaini ng of a painful mass in her right breast. An incisional biopsy carried out under general anesthesia showed a moderately-differentiated angio sarcoma surrounded by fibrofatty tissue. Ruled out distant metastases, a decision was made to initiate neoadjuvant chemotherapy consisting o f ifosfamide, vincristine and dactinimycin. After 2 courses of chemoth erapy the tumor volume was reduced by 50% and the histologic examinati on of the mastectomy specimen revealed a well-differentiated angiosarc oma with widespread areas of necrosis probably produced by previous ch emotherapic treatment. The patient is clinically free of disease after 24 months of follow-up. Although this is a single case report, and by no means can be considered a guideline for future treatments, we neve rtheless feel that the result obtained with the chemotherapeutic appro ach with this patient is encouraging.