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These include your symptoms, the type and features of the cancer, treatments you have had in the past and your general health. The treatment offered will depend on a number of factors.

The purpose of treatment is to relieve symptoms, improve quality of life and slow the growth of the cancer.

When breast cancer spreads to the skin, it can be treated but it cannot be cured. Sometimes you will have dye injected into a vein, usually in your arm, before you have the scan so that different areas can be seen more clearly. It’s painless but during the CT scan you have to lie still for around half an hour. This type of scan uses x-rays to take a series of detailed pictures of the body. You may also have a CT scan, also known as a CAT scan, to check for any other areas of spread. It’s not unusual for the area to bleed a little after the biopsy so you’ll usually be given a small dressing or plaster afterwards. You’ll be given a local anaesthetic before a tiny cutter device is used to take a very small piece of tissue from the area. To confirm a diagnosis of secondary breast cancer in the skin, you may have a punch biopsy. They’ll also discuss any other symptoms you have. Skin metastases can also cause lymphoedema, which is swelling of the arm, hand or breast area.Ī member of your treatment team will examine you and look at your skin. Sometimes the symptoms of skin metastases, such as redness and inflammation, may look like an infection of the skin called cellulitis. a firm, painless nodule (small lump) or a number of nodules of different sizes.It’s also different to local recurrence, which is when primary breast cancer has come back in the chest or breast area, or in the skin near the original site or scar. The cells that have spread to the skin are breast cancer cells. This is not the same as having cancer that starts in the skin. Less commonly, skin metastases can occur on other areas of skin, such as on the scalp, neck, abdomen, back and upper limbs.Ībout a fifth of people with secondary breast cancer will develop skin metastases. The most common sites affected are the areas near where the original breast cancer was – for example the skin of the chest wall or around the surgical scar. This can happen through the blood or lymphatic system. Sometimes breast cancer cells can spread to the skin. Secondary breast cancer happens when cancer cells spread from the breast to other parts of the body.

Skin metastases are secondary breast cancers that form on or just below the skin. Support for living with secondary breast cancer 1.