BC spread to the skin - same area - anyone?

I am wondering why would they call it stage 4? According to staging if it spread to breast skin its called stage 3. and. if reccurance is on breast skin again its called local reccurance. and local recurrence is very different to skin metastasis. You can read all recent studies. Are you considering skin graft?

My doctor told me its stage 3 and its my first reccurance. Small mild rash and it got operated successfully with skin graft from my back. Now i am on Chemo therapy. How big is your rash ? Skin graft is not an option for you

I'm sorry you are going through this, especially five times! My breast cancer spread to my skin also.

Staging skin metastasis is very technical, which might be why there are such varying understandings of it here. My understanding - in general terms - is that skin metastasis of breast cancer can be either stage III or stage IV, depending on the circumstances, and whether the cancer is still surgically resectable. If the skin metastasis is limited to the breast area only it is a local/regional recurrence, but still considered to be "locally advanced" disease. Unfortunately, skin metastasis can also spread out over the body (i.e. down the arms or across the back) and that is stage IV, and not surgically resectable.

Mine was resectable, but I had to transfer to a specialized cancer hospital to find doctors who were capable of doing a chest wall resection and rather large skin graft. It's a lot to go through, but the recent data supports doing this, at least in cases like mine. It improves the disease free interval, and can even be curative for some people. I have no evidence of distant metastasis as of yet, but skin metastasis does make us high risk for distant metastasis.

I've heard of electrochemotherapy for unresectable skin metastasis. I think it's more commonly done in Europe now, but maybe it's something you could look into. That's great news that you're in a clinical trial. I hope it goes well for you. Feel free to PM me if you'd like. Big hugs, and please keep us updated on how everything is going.

Sunshine, PR- seems to be a little more aggressive than PR+, but the mechanism of why does not seem to be known

Glad you're at MSK - sending you best wishes for the start of the trial too!

Hi Nancy, sending hugs your way. I can't begin to imagine how you must be feeling after five recurrences. I've just been diagnosed with my first within 12 months of BMX. It sounds similar to you diagnosis ie spread to skin and not resectable. I'm really interested to know what's involved in your trial?Wishing the very best and I hope the trial goes well. Will be following your journey, xxx

I have skin mets as well and my MO gave the electro-radiation as a potential treatment if it gets too bad. Her definition and my definition of bad seem to be varying though! Since I was already stage 4 I didn’t ask about staging. MO hasn’t brought up anything about skin grafting so I don’t think I’m a candidate for that. It’s covered my entire right breast (the bad one). I’m not sure how that compares though. Has anyone else had it to this extent? It is hard to find information on this. What have you done that has helped? So far my treatments aren’t working on the skin mets and the breast is so swollen I have developed painful stretch marks. Cancer sure is lovely isn’t it...bleh. MO said to massage the breast to help with swelling so we will see how that goes. At least righty will be getting some attention other than from my MO so there’s that.

Cheers

Hi casax, I'm sorry to hear about your skin metastasis. I'll send you a pm.