Inflammatory breast cancer associated with amyopathic dermatomyositis: a case report

Abstract

Background Dermatomyositis is associated with malignant tumors including breast cancer, and inflammatory breast cancer is considered to have a poorer prognosis than most breast cancers. Case presentation A 74-year-old Asian woman, developed erythema on her face, back, and the back of her hands, 3 weeks before attending our department. At the same time, she had noticed a right breast mass and redness of the skin of the breast. The clinical findings and vacuum aspiration biopsy diagnosed inflammatory breast cancer and neoadjuvant chemotherapy was performed. The mass and enlarged axillary lymph nodes had shrunk, therefore a total mastectomy was performed. The sentinel lymph node biopsy was negative. She was discharged 7 days after surgery without any complications. She has received a postoperative aromatase inhibitor and is alive without recurrence. The dermatomyositis also began to improve with the start of her chemotherapy and has not recurred since the surgery. Conclusions Neoadjuvant chemotherapy was performed for inflammatory breast cancer with dermatomyositis, and tumor shrinkage was confirmed. A total mastectomy without axillary lymph node dissection was performed. Dermatomyositis and breast cancer have not recurred. Dermatomyositis may have been a paraneoplastic syndrome due to breast cancer.

Triple-Negative Breast Cancer with Dermatomyositis: A Case Report and Literature Review

“…Inaguma et al initiated oral prednisolone therapy and neoadjuvant chemotherapy concurrently and treat with total mastectomy after significant tumor shrinkage, but still require hormone therapy for DM postoperatively. 27 Similarly Hendren et al opted for surgery after significant tumor shrinkage with neoadjuvant chemotherapy and postoperative anti-DM treatment with Steroid drugs and methotrexate, but rashes and muscle weakness were poorly controlled. 12 For HER2-positive patients, DM symptoms improved little when treatment was directed at DM alone, and when adjuvant therapy with chemoimmunotherapy was switched, DM subsided quickly.…”

A Case of Pathological Complete Response and Resolution of Dermatomyositis Following Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in HER2-Positive Early Breast Cancer

“…Currently, there are no guidelines or randomized trials for the management of breast cancer complicated by dermatomyositis. The literature is based exclusively on case reports [1,2,4,6,8,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. The existing reports do not clearly indicate whether an immediate or postponed surgical approach to neoadjuvant therapy is preferable.…”