A survival analysis of cutaneous metastases in lung cancer: A 25-year experience

Abstract

lesion confirmed histologically to be a cutaneous metastasis. Patients with suspicious cutaneous lesions without a skin biopsy, were excluded. Methods A retrospective study was conducted with patients diagnosed with lung cancer and cutaneous metastases, from January ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION Cutaneous metastases from lung cancer are rare and their presence has been considered a sign of an already disseminated and poor-prognosis disease. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the survival of the patients with cutaneous metastases from lung cancer. METHODS A retrospective study was conducted with patients diagnosed with cutaneous metastases from lung cancer, confirmed by skin biopsy, from January 1995 to December 2020, in our local health unit. Descriptive and survival analysis were performed, considering a level of significance of 5%. RESULTS From a total of 1172 cases of lung cancer, eleven patients (0.94%) had a skin tissue confirmation of cutaneous metastasis, predominantly male (63.6%) with median age of 78 years, and past or active smoking history in 63.6%. In 6 patients (54.5%), this finding was diagnosed simultaneously with primary lung cancer, and adenocarcinoma was the main histological type (63.6%). The most frequent presentation was a single nodule in the anterior chest wall, and all skin lesions had histological concordance with lung cancer. The median overall survival was 2 months (range: 0–27) and from the diagnosis of cutaneous metastasis was 1 month (range: 0–18). Survival analysis revealed that the simultaneous diagnosis of cutaneous metastases and lung cancer shortens survival (2.50 vs 13.20 months; p=0.032).