Secondary Multiple Cutaneous Metastases from Primary Gastric Signet-Ring Cell Adenocarcinoma

Abstract

A 60-year-old man was diagnosed with gastric cancer by endoscopy in our cancer center. Preoperative CT scan showed thickening of the cardia and enlarged lymph nodes in hepatogastric space. Consequently, he accepted total gastrectomy and Roux-en-Y reconstruction. Immunohistochemical detection showed intense positivity for GST-n and Pgp antibodies and negativity for EGFR, ERCC1, P53, Ki67 and HER-2. Surprisingly, within one month, the patient had multiple asymptomatic cutaneous nodules in the left neck, right subclavian, left armpit, left upper abdomen, lower abdomen, right groin and lumbodorsal region. Abdominal CT scan showed a 22 × 22 mm high-density lesion in the splenorenal space, as well as cutaneous nodules in the left upper abdomen, lower abdomen and right groin. Histopathologic examination of cutaneous biopsy showed a poorly differentiated signet-ring cell carcinoma consistent with a diagnosis of secondary metastasis of primary gastric carcinoma. The patient received “DOF” chemotherapy which do benefit to halt the disease progression. He decided not to continue with chemotherapy and died of multiorgan metastasis 2 months later.