Carcinocythemia as the single extension of breast cancer: Report of a caseand review of the literature

Carcinocythemia (carcinoma cell leukemia) has been previously described as a rare, late and dramatic event occurring in widespread tumoral disease. We report a case of carcinocythemia occurring in a patient with a particularl y indolent breast cancer. When a large amount of circulating tumor cells (C TC) appeared in the blood smears, neither visceral macrometastases nor mass ive bone marrow infiltration could be detected. We isolated CTC to perform cell cycle analysis and to study the expression of adhesion molecules. A fr action of the CTC was proliferating in the bloodstream but we detected no r elevant anomaly of adhesion properties in the CTC. A post-mortem biopsy dis closed an exclusive sinusoidal infiltration of the liver. We propose that i n this case, carcinocythemia resulted from the release of CTC from the visc eral microcirculation where the proliferation occurred.