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Sarcoma
Volume 9 (2005), Issue 1-2, Pages 29-31
doi:10.1080/13577140500043948
Case Report

Cutaneous Angiosarcoma of the Scalp: A Case Report of Sustained Complete Response Following Liposomal Doxorubicin and Radiation Therapy

Caroline L. Holloway,1,3 A. Robert Turner,2 and George S. Dundas1

1Division of Radiation Oncology, Department of Oncology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
2Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Oncology, University of Alberta, Edmonton Alberta, Canada
3Department of Radiation Oncology, Cross Cancer Institute, 11560 University Avenue, Edmonton Alberta, Canada

Copyright © 2005 Hindawi Publishing Corporation. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Cutaneous angiosarcomas of the head and neck are aggressive cancers with a mean overall survival of 30 months. We add to the literature a case report of a 65-year-old man with a large, >10 cm, unresectable, angiosarcoma of the scalp who was treated with two cycles of liposomal doxorubicin (Caelyx®) followed by electron beam radiation therapy (30 Gy in 10 fractions over 2 weeks) who has sustained a complete response with a 4-year follow-up. The dose and fractionation of the radiation therapy in this case was palliative and was not expected to give lasting local control of this lesion. It is therefore possible that either the genetic profile of the tumour conferred radiosensitivity or that the radiation therapy induced a recall phenomenon of the liposomal doxorubicin.