Abstract
Background : Eccrine porocarcinoma is a rare malignant skin tumor. To the authors’ knowledge, no case of eccrine porocarcinoma with pleural dissemination has ever been reported.
Case : An 80-year-old woman with fever, dyspnea and pleural effusion underwent thoracocentesis and aspiration cytology which revealed atypical large epithelial cells. An eccrine porocarcinoma had been excised from her lower abdomen three months previously. The cytopathological finding of atypical epithelial cells was neither compatible with lung adenocarcinoma nor reactive mesothelial cells. The atypical epithelial cells were immunohistochemically positive for Cytokeratin 7 (CK7), CK19, EMA and CEA, and negative for CK20, TTF-1, calretinin and GCDFP-15. Some atypical cells had characteristic intracytoplasmic inclusion-like bodies expressing CK7 and CK19. According to the clinical history and immunohistochemical findings, we diagnosed her condition as pleural dissemination of eccrine porocarcinoma of the skin.
Conclusion : We present a rare case of eccrine porocarcinoma of the skin with pleural dissemination. Although the specificity of the intracytoplasmic inclusion-like bodies is unclear, it may be one of the characteristic cytological feature of eccrine porocarcinoma in pleural effusion.
