Angiosarcomas of the head and neck: Impact of large data analysis on clinical management

Abstract

Angiosarcoma is a rare but often fatal malignancy from blood and lymphatic vessels that can arise anywhere in the body and often affects the head and neck region.Although its dismal prognosis is predominantly explained by its aggressive biology, several secondary factors contribute to poor outcomes. These include a phenotypic resemblance to innocuous blood vessel lesions, which contributes to a significant degree of late diagnosis. Another important factor is the rarity of angiosarcoma, which has impaired scientific determination of its optimal treatment significantly. As a result, treatment of angiosarcomas has largely been guided by information derived from the study of sarcomas at large, themselves a highly heterogeneous group of mesenchymal cancers both from a diagnostic as well as therapeutical perspective.The Digital Revolution and resultant Information Age promise to transform the clinical management of rare cancers from a generic to a more customized approach. In this paper, we review the current understanding of head and neck angiosarcomas within the context of this process.

Personalized Medicine in Oral Oncology: Imaging Methods and Biological Markers to Support Diagnosis of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC): A Narrative Literature Review

“…The oral cavity may be affected by various malignant neoplasias, mainly of epithelial origin, such as oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) and lymphoepithelial carcinoma [ 1 ], but also those arising from the derailment of oral melanocytes (oral melanomas) [ 2 ] and other soft tissues, such as sarcomas and angiosarcomas, adenocarcinoma, and adenocarcinoma not otherwise specified (NOS), as well as other rare tumors [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ], and, on clinical bases, it is often difficult to distinguish them from benignant neoplasias and conditions.…”