Skin infiltration within a radiotherapy portal for metastatic bladder cancer--case report and review of the clinical literature

Cutaneous metastasis of uterine papillary serous carcinoma

Uterine papillary serous carcinoma (UPSC) is an uncommon highly malignant variant of endometrial adenocarcinoma that histologically and clinically resembles papillary serous carcinoma of the ovary. This case demonstrates a very rare case of cutaneous metastasis of uterine papillary serous carcinoma. A 54-year-old Korean female developed multiple pruritic skin nodules on the pubic area 13 months later after diagnosis of uterine papillary serous carcinoma. A biopsy of the skin lesions showed papillary serous carcinoma, compatible with her primary tumor. Without clinical history, it is difficult to distinguish other types of metastatic carcinoma to the skin and primary apocrine carcinoma of the skin from metastatic uterine papillary serous carcinoma. Whereas uterine papillary serous carcinoma only rarely involves the skin, this entity should be included in the differential diagnosis of papillary adenocarcinoma in the skin.

Cutaneous metastatic disease

The relative frequencies of cutaneous metastases are similar to those of the primary cancers; breast, colon, and melanoma are the most frequent in women and lung, colon, and melanoma are the most common in men. Cutaneous metastases represent an opportunity to detect a potentially treatable cancer before other evidence of it is present, to modify therapy as appropriate to the tumor stage, or possibly to use the cutaneous lesion as a source of easily accessible tumor cells for specific therapy. Cutaneous metastatic disease as the first sign of internal cancer is most commonly seen with cancer of the lung, kidney, and ovary.