Eccrine ductal carcinoma

The cancer is on the right side of her face

Hi Chacha500432f5 

Thank you for getting in touch with us and welcome to our online community. My name is Lynsay, and I am one of the information nurses with Macmillan Cancer Support.

I hope your mum is recovering well following her second surgery. I am sorry that we don’t have any information on our website about Eccrine ductal carcinoma. This is because this is a very rare kind of cancer, and as this is so rare, there is not a lot of information available on this.

We do have information about rare cancers which I have attached here. This goes through diagnosing and treating, as well as coping with rare cancers and provides links to other organisations that specifically support people diagnosed with a rare cancer.

To give you the information I could find about eccrine ductal carcinoma, this is described as a cancer that starts in the eccrine sweat glands of the skin. It accounts for less than 0.01% of all skin cancers. They are not sure about the causes or risk factors associated with eccrine cancer. It is diagnosed through biopsy and the treatment recommendation is surgery. This can be followed with radiotherapy as it is in your mum’s case.

In relation to what your mums radiotherapy treatment plan will look like, it is difficult to say as this will be determined by the multidisciplinary team involved in her care. Radiology will be able to clarify how many sessions of radiotherapy will be planned for your mum.

To give you general information about radiotherapy, the first thing that happens is a planning session. This involves your mum having a scan and the radiologist uses this to make precise measurements about where the radiotherapy beam will land.

When radiotherapy is being delivered to the head and neck area, this usually involves the need for a radiotherapy mask which is made specifically for your mum. This is used to keep the head immobile during treatment.

Radiotherapy treatment doesn’t tend to take very long to deliver, often between 10-15 minutes and this is usually given daily (Monday to Friday). The full dose of radiotherapy to be given to divided in fractions. These fractions are then delivered daily until the required dose is delivered. Sometimes radiotherapy is delivered as a single fraction and sometimes radiotherapy can go on for weeks.

I have included our information about radiotherapy for head and neck cancers as this will have the most relevant information even though your mum has skin cancer and not a head and neck cancer. I have also included our more general radiotherapy information just in case this is helpful.

There can unfortunately be challenges in relation to being diagnosis with a rare cancer, often this relates to the lack of information available or specific support. Please do get in touch with us on the support line if this would be helpful. We would be happy to chat things through with you, answer any questions we are able to help with and offer as much support as we can.

All the best,

Lynsay

Cancer Information Nurse Specialist 

You can also speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or email us. 

Ref:  LA/HP

Thanks so much for the swift reply Lynsay.  So very unlikely she’ll have radio on 17th so I should be able to attend the appointment and ask questions too?

Introduction

Eccrine carcinoma (EC) is a rare carcinoma that originates from the eccrine sweat glands of the skin and accounts for less than 0.01% of diagnosed cutaneous malignancies.[1] Sweat gland tumors have traditionally subdivided into four broad groups: eccrine, apocrine, mixed origin (eccrine and apocrine), and other unclassifiable sweat gland tumors. Eccrine tumors further divide into benign and malignant. Benign entities include poroma, hidradenoma, spiradenoma, cylindroma, syringometaplasia, syringoma, syringofibroadenoma, and chondroid syringoma. Malignant eccrine carcinoma entities include porocarcinoma, hidradenocarcinoma, malignant spiradenoma carcinoma, malignant cylindroma, syringoid eccrine carcinoma, microcystic adnexal carcinoma, mucinous carcinoma, adenoid cystic carcinoma, and ductal papillary adenocarcinoma. Other un-classifiable sweat gland tumors include eccrine ductal carcinoma, basaloid eccrine carcinoma, clear cell eccrine carcinoma, and non-specified sweat gland carcinomas.

why is eccrine ductal carcinoma unclassified? What does that mean?

Hi again Chacha500432f5,

I’m glad you’ve found my colleague Lynsay’s reply helpful. I’m Kirstine, also an information nurse here at Macmillan. I can see Lynsay has shared some great information so I will keep my reply brief.

In relation to your question about being there on the 17^th, I spotted you mentioned that this is her first radiotherapy appointment. It’s unlikely that a Consultant will be present on this day as these are typically either planning appointments for radiotherapy staff to set up the equipment with the patient, or possible delivery of the first dose. These slots tend to be strictly time controlled and the radiotherapy staff may not have the answers you seek. They should have a list of all scheduled doses though. It may be better to ask your mum when her next meeting with her consultant is and ask if you go then to ask questions or call the hospital to enquire if mum has permission in place for you to speak with them.  

In relation to your question about unclassifiable cancer types, as best I understand it, this describes an uncertainty around the cell types involved. All cancers begin in healthy cells, and the body has many different types of cell that make up the many different structures. Over time these might become faulty and start to look and behave differently. Calling them unclassifiable might be because they are difficult for a pathologist to distinguish when looking at them under a microscope – they might look similar to other cell types or be too altered to tell what they were to begin with, or be a mix of different types of cells. The list you reference here from the internet details cell types involved in various parts of the architecture of the skin and it’s glands that can become cancerous in rare situations. I don’t think it will influence the decision to offer radiotherapy.

I hope this helps a bit more.

Wishing you and your mum all the best moving forwards,

Kirstine – Macmillan

Cancer Information Nurse Specialist

You can also speak with the Macmillan Support Line team of experts. Phone free on 0808 808 0000 (7 days a week, 8am-8pm) or send us an email. Ref KDf/ JH