Metastatic breast carcinoma mimicking a sebaceous gland neoplasm: A case report

Introduction. Breast cancer is common in women and its metastases involve the skin in approximately one quarter of patients. Accordingly, metastatic breast cancer shown to be cutaneous through histology must be distinguished from a wide variety of other neoplasms as well as the diverse morphologic variants of breast cancer itself. Case presentation. We report the case of a 61-year-old Caucasian woman with cutaneous metastases of a bilateral ductal breast carcinoma that in histopathological examination mimicked an adnexal neoplasm with sebaceous differentiation. Conclusion: Against the background of metastatic breast carcinoma, dermatopathological considerations of sebaceous differentiation of skin lesions are presented and discussed focusing on the rare differential diagnosis of sebaceous carcinoma of the breast. © 2011 Müller et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.