Bilateral hand squamous-cells carcinoma in patient affected with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Case report and literature review

Background. Squamous-cell skin cancer is the most frequent tumor in the hand. It occurs on sun-damaged skin, especially in light-skinned individuals with a long history of chronic sun exposure. Case report. We describe a case of bilateral hand squamous-cell carcinoma in a elderly patient affected with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, who underwent several non-successful surgical treatment, radiotherapy and at the least, amputation of right hand for rapid clinical evolution after radiotreatment. Available literature on the subject has been reviewed. Results. In our case, after several non-successful treatment, elective amputation at the distal third of forearm was performed. We reviewed 56 items including books, original articles, reviews, cases report. Conclusions. Current evidence on treatment of hand squamous-cells carcinoma is to perform a first radical surgical treatment in order to avoid recurrence/metastasis and to achieve a safer level of amputation thus increasing the surface area of healthy tissue available for eventually subsequent reconstruction/prosthesization.