Dermoscopy of skin metastases from breast cancer: two case reports

Cutaneous metastatic breast cancer is the most common cutaneous metastatic malignancy in women. The assessment of cutaneous metastatic disease can be perplexing because the clinical presentation appears similar to other skin malignancies like angiosarcoma or melanoma, or benign diseases like cellulitis and lymphedema. To date, only a limited number of dermoscopic images of cutaneous metastatic solid tumors, especially breast cancer, have been published.

The authors report two Moroccan cases highlighting dermoscopy as a quick tool to recognize skin metastasis of breast cancer in two different clinical presentations. A 51-year-old Moroccan woman presented with nodules of various sizes on and around a mastectomy scar, and a 65-year-old Moroccan woman presented with cellulitis-like lesions on her chest wall and her back. Dermoscopic features were similar in the two cases with findings of yellow central areas, polymorphic vessels, whitish bright lines, whitish structureless areas, and linear irregular fissure-like depressions on a pink-orange background.

The recognition of dermoscopic patterns of cutaneous metastasis of breast cancer is not only useful to facilitate diagnosis at an early stage and to rule out other differentials, especially in difficult presentations such as cellulitis-like lesions or lymphedema, but it may also be used by physicians in monitoring mastectomy scars.