Skin Metastasis of Hypopharyngeal Carcinoma to the Nasal Tip

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) rarely metastasizes to the skin. Metastases to the nasal tip from hypopharyngeal malignancies are extremely rare. We present a patient with nasal tip metastasis from hypopharyngeal SCC. A 74-year-old man with hypopharyngeal and esophageal carcinomas had a red nodule on his nasal tip (so-called "clown nose"). Histopathologically, atypical squamoid cell nests had proliferated in a lobular fashion from the dermis to subcutaneous tissue. Those atypical cells were identical to primary tumor cells in the hypopharynx. Based on these findings, a diagnosis of skin metastasis from hypopharyngeal SCC was made. In patients with malignant disease, biopsy should be performed for any suspicious skin lesion. In a patient like ours, "clown nose" might be a symptom of cutaneous metastasis. When clinicians note a "clown nose", they should consider malignancies in the neck and chest areas.