Cutaneous metastases of gastrointestinal malignancies

Cutaneous metastases of internal malignancies are uncommon and typically associated with an advanced stage of the disease. In the present study, we examined retrospectively the clinical, histopathologic and immunophenotypic features of cutaneous metastases of 8 patients with stomach carcinoma and 7 patients with colon carcinoma. Skin lesions appeared as multiple or solitary nodules or as ulcerated plaques, most frequently located on the abdominal wall. Skin metastatic disease presented as the first sign of internal malignancy in 1 patient with stomach cancer and in 1 patient with colon carcinoma. In both stomach and colon skin metastases, histopathologic findings of adenocarcinoma with varying degrees of differentiation were observed. Immunohistochemical investigations showed a strong positivity of neoplastic cells for pancytokeratins and, in most cases, a positive staining for TPA and CEA-NCA. Systemic chemotherapy is the recommended treatment. However, despite advances in cancer therapy, the occurrence of skin metastases from internal primary tumors still represents a poor prognostic sign. |