Highly aggressive extraocular sebaceous carcinoma

Extraocular sebaceous carcinoma is an uncommon neoplasm usually localized on the head and neck. We report a case of sebaceous carcinoma of the axillary skin with a highly aggressive behavior. The patient was a 43-year-old black man who developed multiple cutaneous and lymph node metastases shortly after the excision of primary sebaceous carcinoma of the axillary skin. Many neoplastic aggregations were identified within the lumina of the dermal lymphatic vessels in the excised specimen of the primary neoplasm. Although extraocular sebaceous carcinoma has been traditionally considered a less aggressive neoplasm than its ocular counterpart, a review of the literature and this case demonstrate that extraocular sebaceous carcinoma may also lead to disseminated metastatic disease.