1. ¹Tampere School of Public Health, FI-33014 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
2. ²Finnish Cancer Registry, Institute for Statistical and Epidemiological Cancer Research, FI-00170 Helsinki, Finland
3. ³Finnish Cancer Institute, FI-00170 Helsinki, Finland
4. ⁴Research and Environmental Surveillance, STUK – Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, FI-00881 Helsinki, Finland

Correspondence: Dr A Virtanen, E-mail: anna.virtanen@uta.fi

Received 24 January 2007; Revised 18 April 2007; Accepted 25 April 2007; Published online 22 May 2007.

Abstract

We evaluated the risk of angiosarcoma after radiotherapy among all patients with cancers of breast, cervix uteri, corpus uteri, lung, ovary, prostate, or rectum, and lymphoma diagnosed in Finland during 1953–2003, identified from the Finnish Cancer Registry. Only angiosarcomas of the trunk were considered, this being the target of radiotherapy for the first cancer. In the follow-up of 1.8 million person-years at risk, 19 angiosarcomas developed, all after breast and gynaecological cancer. Excess of angiosarcomas over national incidence rates were observed after radiotherapy without chemotherapy (standardised incidence ratio (SIR) 6.0, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.7–11), after both radiotherapy and chemotherapy (SIR 100, 95% CI 12–360), and after other treatments (SIR 3.6, 95% CI 1.6–7.1). In the regression analysis however, the adjusted rate ratio for radiotherapy was 1.0 (95% CI 0.23–4.4). Although an increased risk of angiosarcoma among cancer patients is evident, especially with breast and gynaecological cancer, the excess does not appear to be strongly related to radiotherapy.