ABSTRACT
Breast cancer can metastasize to organs all over the body, but isolated mesenteric metastases are rare. A 72-year-old female, with a history of invasive lobular carcinoma of the breast treated with breast-conserving therapy and axillary lymphadenectomy 7 years previously and 5 years of endocrine therapy, presented with asymptomatic elevated serum carcino- embryonic antigen. Computed tomography(CT)revealed no obvious distant metastasis, but showed increased adipose tissue density around the pancreas suggestive of acute pancreatitis. During follow-up, in addition to the abnormality around the pancreas, mild thickening of the mesentery was observed on CT. Definitive diagnosis of mesenteric metastasis of invasive lobular carcinoma was confirmed via laparoscopic biopsy. It was supposed that the breast cancer had first metastasized to the retroperitoneum via the hematogenous route, and had then directly infiltrated the mesentery. Laparoscopic biopsy is effective for diagnosis of intra-peritoneal metastases.
Subject(s)
Breast Neoplasms , Laparoscopy , Pancreatitis , Acute Disease , Aged , Biopsy , Breast Neoplasms/diagnosis , Breast Neoplasms/surgery , Female , Humans , MesenteryABSTRACT
A 73-year-old man presented with anemia, and gastroscopy showed a nonpigmented tumor in the esophagogastric junction. The result of the tumor biopsy initially suspected poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. However, additional immunohistochemical examination revealed malignant melanoma. The final diagnosis was amelanotic malignant melanoma of the esophagogastric junction with adrenal and spinal metastasis. Although immunotherapy was performed, the patient died 132 days after diagnosis.
