Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0392680 (shortness of breath)
 5,217 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A 76-year-old man with a dry cough visited our hospital in June 2006. A chest X-ray showed opacification of the left hemithorax and CT demonstrated a soft tissue mass with pleural calcification. At first, we considered he had acute bronchitis with an old tuberculous pyothorax. But, his condition deteriorated with the additional complaint of a left chest pain and shortness of breath in September 2006. Consequently, he was admitted to our hospital. CT demonstrated that the soft tissue mass was growing and was invading the left rib and submammary tissue. Neither CT nor sonographically guided fine needle biopsies and cytological examinations were helpful in diagnosing this disease. He died of respiratory failure 2 months after admission. Autopsy revealed pyothorax and a hemorrhagic tumor from the left side of the thoracic cavity to the chest wall. Microscopic examination showed that atypical cells had proliferated and formed vascular structures, which were stained positively with anti-factor VIII antibody. Finally, the diagnosis was made of pyothorax-associated pleural Angiosarcoma. Angiosarcoma is rare and difficult to diagnosis, however, we have to keep in mind the presence of disease pyothorax-associated pleural angiosarcoma.
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PMID:[A case of pyothorax-associated pleural angiosarcoma diagnosed by autopsy]. 1967 Aug

An 80-year-old man presented to our hospital with complaints of tarry stool and shortness of breath. A blood test confirmed marked anemia. On abdominal contrast-enhanced computed tomography, neither hemorrhagic lesions nor tumorous lesions could be pointed out. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed multiple erythematous flat elevated lesions, which were about 10mm in diameter, located between the stomach and the horizontal part of the duodenum. Colonoscopy revealed similar lesions throughout the entire colon. Pathological examination of biopsy specimens demonstrated the proliferation of neoplastic cells positive for immunostaining of factor VIII-related antigen, CD31, and CD34. Accordingly, the patient was diagnosed with angiosarcoma of the gastrointestinal tract. Although the patient was transferred to another hospital for chemotherapy, he died shortly after the transfer because of deterioration of his bleeding symptoms. Angiosarcoma is a soft-tissue neoplasm of vascular endothelium origin, accounting for less than 2% of all sarcomas. It usually occurs in the skin of the head and neck and in soft tissues. Angiosarcoma of the gastrointestinal tract is rare and is described only in case reports and small series. These tumors are characterized by an extremely aggressive course, with a high tendency to metastasize, leaving patients with a poor prognosis. When angiosarcoma is found in multiple sites of the gastrointestinal tract, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate between primary and metastatic occurrences. We analyzed reported cases of multifocal angiosarcoma of the digestive tract, of which there are 43 so far. In 24 cases, the angiosarcoma was thought to originate from the gastrointestinal tract (primary angiosarcoma). In 13 cases, angiosarcoma of other organs metastasized to the digestive tract (metastatic angiosarcoma). In the remaining 6 cases, whether the multifocal angiosarcoma of the digestive tract was primary or metastatic was unclear. In the current case, no primary lesion was found outside the gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, he was diagnosed with primary multifocal angiosarcoma.
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PMID:Multifocal angiosarcoma of the gastrointestinal tract:a case report. 2888 96

Angiosarcoma of the heart is an uncommon soft tissue sarcoma. A few cases of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) associated with angiosarcoma occurring in various organs, but not the heart, have been reported. Although taxane is commonly used in the treatment of metastatic angiosarcoma, data on the efficacy of nab-paclitaxel for angiosarcoma are limited. Here, we report probably the first case of a patient with primary cardiac angiosarcoma with coexisting DIC who was successfully treated with nab-paclitaxel. A 62-year-old female with chief complaints of nausea and shortness of breath was diagnosed as having cardiac angiosarcoma with liver metastases. Four months after the resection of her primary tumor, the hepatic metastatic lesions progressed rapidly accompanied by new metastatic lesions in the right iliac bone and signs of DIC. She received nab-paclitaxel as first-line chemotherapy. A response of stable disease was achieved after 2 treatment cycles and DIC was successfully controlled for at least 4 months. This report suggests potential utility of nab-paclitaxel for angiosarcoma complicated with DIC. We also review the literature for all cases of angiosarcoma with DIC reported so far.
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PMID:Successful Treatment of Cardiac Angiosarcoma Associated with Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation with Nab-Paclitaxel: A Case Report and Review of the Literature. 2907 Oct 3