Abstract
Angiosarcoma is mainly arising on the scalp of elderly persons and has high malignancy. Its prognosis is very poor and survival term from onset was about one year even though ordinary combination therapies (radical excision, chemotherapy, radiation) have been performed.We started IL-2 immunotherapy for angiosarcoma from 1987 and twelve patients (10 patients with hemangiosarcoma, 2 patients with lymphangiosarcoma) have been treated. Therapeutic effect of IL-2 is through activation of lymphocyte and induction of LAK-cells. From our experience, we made the plan of IL-2 immunotherapy for hemangiosarcoma, based on clinical and pathological features. Macular lesion that is structured by well-differentiated tumor cells with some lymphocyte infiltration is treated with intra-lesional injection of IL-2 or sometimes IL-2 one-shot intra-arterial injection from external carotid artery. Elevated or ulcerative-nodular lesions that are mostly composed of poorly-differentiated tumor cells without lymphocyte infiltration are treated with combination therapy of one-shot injection of IL-2 and LAK-cells from external carotid artery and small scale surgical excision limited to these lesions. IL-2 immunotherapy by our plan was more effective and valuable for elderly persons with hemangiosarcoma, as compared with ordinary combination therapy, but still insufficient. Moreover, lymphangiosarcoma in our 2 cases that showed different clinical and pathological features from hemangiosarcoma was resistant against IL-2 immunotherapy. At all events, we shall have to discuss to develop IL-2 immunother-apy for the patients with angiosarcoma.
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