MR Imaging Features of a Solitary Subcutaneous Metastasis from a Gastric Adenocarcinoma: A Case Report

ma include the liver, lung, lymph nodes and peritoneum. A metastasis to soft tissue such as skeletal muscle or subcutaneous fatty tissue from a gastric carcinoma is extremely rare. This ominous complication usually occurs only late in the disease course of most patients. With improvement in gastric cancer treatment, a subcutaneous metastasis may be more frequently found due to prolonged patient survival. As gastric carcinoma metastases are rare, presumptive pathophysiology and imaging features have not been well characterized. Few reports in the literature have described computed tomography (CT) and MR findings of skeletal muscle metastases of gastric cancer (1, 2). However, there are no known studies in the clinical literature concerning MR imaging findings of a subcutaneous metastasis from gastric cancer to the best of our knowledge. We present a case of a nodular solitary subcutaneous metastasis from a gastric carcinoma with a description of the MR imaging features, which were helpful to characterize the lesion as well as to define the extent of the metastasis for the excision of the mass.