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Interesting Image
39 (
2
); 146-147
doi:
10.4103/ijnm.ijnm_31_23

Rare Presentation of En Cuirasse Detected on 18-F FDG PET/CT in a Case of Recurrent Breast Carcinoma

Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Address for correspondence: Dr. Shamim Ahmed Shamim, Department of Nuclear Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India. E-mail: sashamim2002@gmail.com

Licence
This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
Disclaimer:
This article was originally published by Wolters Kluwer - Medknow and was migrated to Scientific Scholar after the change of Publisher.

Abstract

Carcinoma en cuirasse is a type of cutaneous metastasis from different malignancies. En cuirasse although is a rare entity, most commonly occurs in cases of recurrent breast carcinoma after surgery or very rarely months or years after diagnosis of primary tumor. We report a rare case of neck carcinoma en cuirasse in a 47-year-old Indian female who is a known case of recurrent carcinoma left breast postmodified radical mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy referred for fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography–computed tomography following another six cycles of chemotherapy for response assessment.

Keywords

Carcinoma breast
en curiasse
fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography–computed tomography

A 47-year-old female who is a known case of recurrent breast carcinoma having undergone modified radical mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy was referred for 18-F fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography–computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) scan for response assessment following six more cycles of chemotherapy. (a) The maximum intensity projection of the patient showing intense FDG uptake involving bilateral cervical lymph nodes, chest wall, and abdominal soft-tissue deposits (b and c) Transverse images of the PET/CT fusion and the attenuation CT images demonstrated multiple bilateral cervical node metastases with cutaneous tissue involvement extending from left retroauricular region with increased FDG uptake, (d and e) shows left postmodified radical mastectomy status in a case of recurrent breast carcinoma with FDG avid soft-tissue thickening of the right breast (f and g) shows soft-tissue deposit in the right anterior abdominal wall. The incidence of en cuirasse from different malignancies ranges from 0.7% to 10.0%.[12] Most common malignancies leading to carcinoma en cuirasse is melanoma,[3] followed by breast carcinoma.[4] Fibrotic type of metastatic spread to skin characterized by hard and leathery plaque is named “encasement of armor” or carcinoma en cuirasse.[5] Although en cuirasses from breast carcinoma are most commonly reported involving the chest wall,[6] there are rare cases of distant en cuirasse to abdominal skin too.[7] To the best of our knowledge, there are no reports of en cuirasse involving the neck, breast, and abdominal wall from carcinoma breast
Figure 1 A 47-year-old female who is a known case of recurrent breast carcinoma having undergone modified radical mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy was referred for 18-F fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography–computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) scan for response assessment following six more cycles of chemotherapy. (a) The maximum intensity projection of the patient showing intense FDG uptake involving bilateral cervical lymph nodes, chest wall, and abdominal soft-tissue deposits (b and c) Transverse images of the PET/CT fusion and the attenuation CT images demonstrated multiple bilateral cervical node metastases with cutaneous tissue involvement extending from left retroauricular region with increased FDG uptake, (d and e) shows left postmodified radical mastectomy status in a case of recurrent breast carcinoma with FDG avid soft-tissue thickening of the right breast (f and g) shows soft-tissue deposit in the right anterior abdominal wall. The incidence of en cuirasse from different malignancies ranges from 0.7% to 10.0%.[12] Most common malignancies leading to carcinoma en cuirasse is melanoma,[3] followed by breast carcinoma.[4] Fibrotic type of metastatic spread to skin characterized by hard and leathery plaque is named “encasement of armor” or carcinoma en cuirasse.[5] Although en cuirasses from breast carcinoma are most commonly reported involving the chest wall,[6] there are rare cases of distant en cuirasse to abdominal skin too.[7] To the best of our knowledge, there are no reports of en cuirasse involving the neck, breast, and abdominal wall from carcinoma breast

Declaration of patient consent

The authors certify that they have obtained all appropriate patient consent forms. In the form, the patient has given her consent for her images and other clinical information to be reported in the journal. The patient understands that her name and initials will not be published and due efforts will be made to conceal her identity, but anonymity cannot be guaranteed.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

References

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