[Localized neutrophilic eccrine hydradenitis in mitoxantrone therapy: a typical side-effect of cytostatic drugs]

In a 59 year-old woman, polychemotherapy with cyclophosphamide and mitoxantrone was started because of liver and bone marrow metastases following operative treatment of breast cancer with subsequent X-ray treatment in 1982. Three weeks after the fourth cycle of polychemotherapy multiple small, firm, reddish papules and pustules developed on the lymphedematous right arm. Histology revealed a dense, well-circumscribed granulocytic infiltrate around the acrosyringial part of the sweat gland duct. Skin lesions cleared completely after the chemotherapy had been changed to cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and 5-FU. The purpose of our report is to present this largely unknown distinct clinicopathologic entity caused by anthracyclines.