Ectopic Breast Cancer: Two Case Report and Review

Abstract

We experienced two cases of ectopic breast cancer referred from the surgical departments of two major hospitals in Fukuoka city under the tentative diagnosis of appendage skin tumors. The first case was a 54-year-old woman presenting with a firm erythematous nodule of 1.5 cm in diameter on her left precordial region which had grown slowly during the previous 4 years. It’s glossy appearance implied an eccrine-origin malignancy. The other was a 45-year-old woman who presented with a firm induration of 2×2 cm in her right axilla that had expanded slowly during the previous 18 months. The lesion had been previously incised as an epidermoid cyst. Manmmography revealed no abnormalities in either case. A wide resection with lymphoidestomy revealed no metastasis in the first case, but many invasive lymph nodes in the second one. We dermatologists can contribute for further improving the prognosis of patients with breast cancer by properly diagnosing such unusual adenocarcinomas that developed from ectopic mammary grands.