A progressive and refractory case of breast cancer with Cowden syndrome

Cowden syndrome is a rare autosomal-dominant disease with a high risk of malignant tumors of the breast, commonly caused by germline mutations in the PTEN gene. Most breast cancers related to Cowden syndrome showed typically a slow-growing and favorable clinical course. Here, we report a progressive case of triple-negative breast cancer in a patient who was diagnosed with Cowden syndrome.

A 35-year-old female with breast cancer was referred to our hospital. Histopathological examination of the tumor showed that it was triple-negative breast cancer with high proliferation marker. Preoperative positron emission tomography-computed tomography showed abnormal uptake in the left cerebellar hemisphere in addition to the right breast and axillary lymph node. Brain T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging revealed hyperintense bands in the left cerebellar hemisphere lesion, which demonstrated a "tiger-stripe" appearance. The patient's mother had died of endometrial cancer. Subsequently, she underwent genetic testing, leading to a diagnosis of Cowden syndrome with a pathogenic variant c.823_840del.18 at exon 8 in PTEN. She was treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy of eribulin and cyclophosphamide followed by adriamycin and cyclophosphamide. However, her tumors increased after these treatments. She was immediately surgically treated and received adjuvant chemotherapy of capecitabine. Unfortunately, the cancer recurred in the lung nine months after surgery. We then administered paclitaxel and bevacizumab therapy, but the disease rapidly progressed. Consequently, the patient died due to breast cancer about three months after recurrence.

We report an aggressive case of cancer with Cowden syndrome which was resistant to standard chemotherapy. Alteration of the phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase/Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin pathway due to inactivating PTEN protein may be associated with chemoresistance and serves as a candidate for therapeutic intervention in PTEN-related cancers.