Hepatic Angiosarcoma Associated with Esophageal Variceal Hemorrhage

Primary hepatic angiosarcoma is a very rare malignancy with a poor prognosis. Because patients present with no specific symptoms, the cancer can grow undetected and most cases are diagnosed too late for resection. We present the case of a 78-year-old Japanese man admitted to our hospital with massiv...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zensho Ito, Mikio Kajihara, Yasunobu Kobayashi, Tomoya Kanai, Yoshihiro Matsumoto, Kazuki  Takakura, Toyokazu  Yukawa, Toshifumi Ohkusa, Seita Koyama, Hiroo Imazu, Hiroshi Arakawa, Mitsuru Ohata, Shigeo Koido
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Karger Publishers 2016-08-01
Series:Case Reports in Gastroenterology
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/448067
Description
Summary:Primary hepatic angiosarcoma is a very rare malignancy with a poor prognosis. Because patients present with no specific symptoms, the cancer can grow undetected and most cases are diagnosed too late for resection. We present the case of a 78-year-old Japanese man admitted to our hospital with massive hematemesis and melena. A total gastrectomy had previously been performed on the patient to treat gastric cancer. Endoscopic injection sclerotherapy was performed to control the bleeding from varices over the anastomosis. Computed tomography revealed the presence of multiple atypical liver nodules in the enhanced image. Histological diagnosis of hepatic angiosarcoma was obtained by percutaneous ultrasound-guided liver biopsy. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a patient with hepatic angiosarcoma and acute variceal hemorrhage.
ISSN:1662-0631