An Unusual Distant Metastatic Site from Hypopharygeal Carcinoma

Abstract

The most common distant metastatic sites from hypopharyngeal carcinoma are the lung, liver and bone. Distant skin metastases are very rare in even very advanced stages, and only 5 cases have been reported in the English literature. We describe a case of hypopharyngeal carcinoma which metastasized to the forearm of a 63-year-old man. It was found coincidentally following the detection of hypopharyngeal carcinoma. The skin biopsy specimen contained poorly differentiated squamous carcinoma cells which were almost identical to those of the primary lesion. The metastatic tumor on the forearm continued to progress and the patient eventually died of the disease 32 days after diagnosis even after immediate concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Any skin tumor with rapid progression in a patient with head and neck cancer may be related to a metastatic lesion even when it is distant to the primary tumor. Skin metastasis from hypopharyngeal carcinoma appears to be refractory to radiotherapy and chemotherapy and has a poor prognosis.