Clinical and dermatological aspects of advanced breast cancer. Its relation with therapy and prognosis

: Seventy patients with locally progressive and/or recurrent mammary cancer or with metastatic lesions located on the area of the surgical procedure were evaluated. Several clinical parameters related to the natural history of the disease were outlined. Some of them kept a close link with the therapeutical results. A dermatological classification of the local recurrencies was made based on the clinical aspects. The improvement of the local recurrencies was classified as total or partial according to the response to the treatment. The association of chemotherapy, anabolic drugs and corticosteroids was the uniform treatment for all the cutaneous lesions. Some of these patients achieve a good therapeutical result. These were the patients with a free interval of more than two years and those with bilateral cancer who have had surgical excision. The other group formed by patients where adrenalectomy was performed or with local recurrencies before the two years period has developed a shorter survival time than the first group. The combined of chemotherapy and hormone treatment is useful in dealing with local recurrent or metastatic skin lesions of mammary cancer.