Breast Angiosarcoma: a SEER Population- Based Study

Abstract

Background Breast angiosarcoma is a rare malignancy with poor survival. Due to the paucity of data, the generation of high-quality evidence for its high-risk features and the impact of treatment modalities on survival have been hampered. Objective To examine high-risk features and the impact of treatment modalities on disease-specific survival (DSS) in breast angiosarcoma and differences between breast angiosarcoma cases with and without other prior cancers. Methods In this retrospective study, patients with breast angiosarcoma diagnosed from 1975 to 2016 were identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis adjusted for age, race, decade at diagnosis, location, pathologic grade, extent of disease, tumor size, and therapy to model DSS outcomes. Propensity score matching analyses were performed to adjust for the differences between breast angiosarcoma cases with and without other prior cancers to compare their DSS values. A Kaplan-Meier curve was used to visualize the cumulative survival probability. Results Of 648 patients with breast angiosarcoma, 55.4% had a prior cancer diagnosis. Older (age ≥ 70) patients were more likely to have breast angiosarcoma with prior cancer than younger patients (64.3% versus 21.8%). Via multivariate analysis, pathologic grade and extent of disease were identified to be significantly associated with DSS in breast angiosarcoma. In matched data, breast angiosarcoma patients with prior cancer had a better DSS than those without prior cancer (HR = 0.60, 95%CI 0.38–0.96, p = 0.0389). In breast angiosarcoma patients without prior cancer, patients with larger tumor size receiving surgery plus radiation or/and chemotherapy might have a better survival than those patients receiving surgery only (HR = 0.38, 95%CI 0.14–0.99, p = 0.0128). DSS is not impacted by the current therapeutic strategies in unselected breast angiosarcoma patients. Conclusions Breast angiosarcoma patients with prior cancer have a better DSS than those without prior cancer. Additionally, some breast angiosarcoma cases with prior cancer may be cutaneous angiosarcomas. Pathologic grade and extent disease are high-risk features. DSS is not impacted by the current therapeutic strategies in unselected breast angiosarcoma patients.