Background: Primary hepatic angiosarcoma (PHA) is a rare tumor entity. Radical surgical resection is currently considered the best treatment choice. The aim of this analysis is to report our experience with surgery for PHA.
Methods: All resections of PHA from 01/2002 until 06/2017 were identified from our prospective institutional database. All cases were re-confirmed by a second pathologist. We analyzed completeness of resection, overall (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS).
Results: Nine patients with PHA underwent hepatic resection. Median follow-up after surgery was 15.5 months (range: 3-144). At last follow-up 4/9 patients were alive, three of them without recurrence 15, 21 and 144 months after surgery. Five patients developed PHA recurrence. Four of these died 3 to 17 months after surgery. One patient with PHA recurrence is alive 15 months after surgery. Another patient without PHA recurrence died 59 months after surgery from pancreatic cancer. Median OS and DFS after resection was 18 months (range: 3-144 months) and 10 months (range: 2-144 months), respectively. After R-0 resection (n = 8), the median OS and DFS was 59 and 11 months.
Conclusions: Resection of PHA is the only approach to achieve complete tumor removal and offers a chance for long-term survival and should be evaluated in cases of PHA.
Keywords: Liver malignancies; Liver resection; Surgical oncology.