Breast angiosarcoma after primary breast cancer surgery: A systematic review

Background: A potentially fatal disease of breast angiosarcoma (AS) can occur after breast cancer treatments, and previous studies have revealed that lymphedema is a risk factor of AS development. However, little is known, and there is no systematic review focusing on the relationship between lymphedema and breast AS. This systematic review aimed to evaluate all publications on breast AS after primary breast cancer surgery to identify prognostic factors and evaluate treatment modalities.

Methods: Databases were searched for articles with published individual patient data on prognostic factors, treatment, and follow-up of patients with breast AS after primary breast cancer surgery. Statistical analysis was performed to test the prognostic values of age, gender, location, tumor-node-metastasis classification of primary breast cancer (tumor and node), stage of primary breast cancer, treatment for primary breast cancer, breast cancer recurrence, post-operative lymphedema, latent period from primary breast cancer to AS, treatment for AS, AS recurrence, and time until death or last follow-up.

Results: Twenty articles were included, representing data on 41 patients. In these articles, 15 patients were referred to post-operative lymphedema. Eleven patients of them had post-operative lymphedema. As for this research, post-operative lymphedema was not a significant prognostic factor. AS recurrence was significant as a prognostic factor (P-value < 0.001) in univariate analysis for follow-up status; patients who had AS recurrence had a shorter time until death.

Conclusion: In this systematic review, AS recurrence was of prognostic value for breast AS patients after primary breast cancer surgery. There are only a few articles that refer post-operative breast lymphedema.