Clinical Medicine Insights: Oncology

Excluding malignant melanoma, breast cancer has the highest incidence of cutaneous metastasis compared to any other solid malignancy. Up to 24% of patients with metastatic breast cancer are expected to have metastasis to the skin. Clinical trials testing various chemotherapeutic regiments for metastatic breast cancer generally do not report the success or failure rates of their regiments in relation to patients with metastasis to the skin. We report here 2 patients with cutaneous metastatic breast cancer who experiences dramatic and durable responses to single agent oral capecitabine. In addition we provide a brief review of the literature regarding the presentation, prognosis and treatment of cutaneous metastatic breast cancer with particular attention to local treatment modalities available.