Elsevier

Annals of Oncology

Volume 23, Issue 2, February 2012, Pages 517-523
Annals of Oncology

original articles
sarcomas
Metastatic angiosarcomas: doxorubicin-based regimens, weekly paclitaxel and metastasectomy significantly improve the outcome

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ABSTRACT

Background

Angiosarcomas are a rare but aggressive form of soft tissue sarcoma. At metastatic stage, the clinical benefit of therapeutic intervention remains debatable.

Patients and methods

We have carried a retrospective analysis of 149 cases treated between 1996 and 2009 in the French Sarcoma Group.

Results

The median age was 60; the sex ratio was 0.80. Sixty-two percentage of cases presented with metastasis at the diagnosis. About 20% arose in irradiated fields. The median overall survival was 11 months. Treatment consisted in metastasectomy (5.4%), doxorubicin-based regimen (46.9%), weekly paclitaxel (Taxol) (31.5%), other chemotherapy regimens (10.7%) or exclusive palliative care (10.9%). Clinical prognostic factors identified by univariate analysis were presence of bone metastasis (P = 0.0107), presence of other metastasis (P = 0.0327) and performance status (P < 0.0001). The Cox model retained a performance status of two or more as the sole independent prognostic factor (HR [hazard ratio] = 2.49, P < 0.0001). After adjustment to the performance status and compared with exclusive palliative care, the following treatments significantly improve the outcome: doxorubicin-based regimen as first-line chemotherapy (HR = 0.38, P = 0.0165), weekly paclitaxel as first-line regimen (HR = 0.36, P = 0.0146) and metastasectomy (HR = 0.09, P = 0.0221).

Conclusions

This retrospective analysis indicates that some therapeutic interventions may significantly improve the outcome of this aggressive disease. Doxorubicin-based regimens and weekly paclitaxel seem to provide the same range of efficacy.

Keywords

angiosarcoma
doxorubicin
metastases
prognostic factors
surgery
weekly paclitaxel

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