IL CARCINOMA DELLE GHIANDOLE APOCRINE

Carcinomas of the apocrine glands are amongst the rarest skin cancers, with only about 30 cases internationally described. They are usually located at the axillae or other areas with a large number of apocrine glands, such as the anogenital area, but can be found in any part of the body surface, including the external antrum auris (from the wax-producing glands) and the palpebral fissure (from the Moll glands). Although some of such carcinomas are invasive just locally, metastases to the regional lymphoglands are not infrequent, and deaths due to diffuse metastases have been reported. Histologically they are adenocarcinomas, with different degrees of differentiation. The cytoplasm of the tumoral cells is strongly acidophilous and contains PAS-positive and diastase-resistant granules and iron-positive granules. Immunochemical essaies prove their apocrine origin, because of the presence of apocrine enzymatic activity (acid phosphatase, betaglucuronidasis, indoxyl acetate esterasis) while eccrine enzymatic activity is low or absent (phosphorilase, succinil dehidrogenase). The Authors report a case, describing therapy, histological and immunochemical findings.