Abstract
An 83-year-old man noted rapidly progressing nodes with recurrent bleeding on the scalp for 2 months. He had no history of head injury, although he had renal failure, hypertension and gallstones. The patient first visited the department of surgery in a neighboring hospital, and a biopsy of the node disclosed the findings of angiosarcoma. The patient was referred to our department for the treatment with IL-2 and electron beam. Examination on admission revealed palm-sized, welldemarcated darkly-reddish plaque on the left parietal and occipital scalp. Several thumb-head sized dome-shaped nodes were coalesced on the center of the plaque. Local injection of IL-2 was started and then electron beam therapy (totally 50 Gy) was added. Pulmonary metastases were found on 75th day of hospitalization, and the patient died of respiratory failure one month later. Post-mortem examination revealed multiple metastases of the both lungs, the liver, the diaphragm and the cervical lymph nodes. Tumor cells were also found in the pleural fluid.
We clinically and pathologically compared the same site on admission and on post-mortem examination. Plaque lesions on admission underwent nodular lesions on autopsy. Histologically, the density of tumor cells was increased whereas the formation of vascular lumina was obscure in the specimens of the autopsy. The densities of p53 and MIB-1 positive cells were greater in the specimens of the autopsy than those on admission. [Skin Cancer (Japan) 2003; 18: 208-213]
