Hemangioendothelioma (overview)

Mallory, 1908; the historical development of the term is decidedly confusing, with different histological (benign as well as malignant) clinical pictures being subsumed under this term from decade to decade.

Today, the term "hemangioendothelioma" refers to a heterogeneous group of low-malignant (borderline) tumors whose dignity is classified between angiomas and angiosarcomas. They grow locally destructive, but metastasize extremely rarely, and then only to the regional lymph nodes. Hemangioendotheliomas include:

• Spindle cell hemangioma (previously spindle cell hemangioendothelioma).
• Kaposi-form hemangioendothelioma
• Papillary intralymphatic angioendothelioma (Dabska type hemangioendothelioma)
• Hemangioendothelioma retiformes
• Hemangioendothelioma epitheloides

Cytogenetically, hemangioendotheliomas have characteristic translocation-related fusion genes that can be used diagnostically (FISH analysis).

1. Mallory EB (1908) The results of the application of special histological methods to the study of tumors. J Exp Med 10: 575-593