Skin metastases of non-primary skin tumours are extremely rare in dogs and cats and only sporadic cases have been reported in the literature. In certain cases, cutaneous metastases may be the first sign of an undiagnosed non-cutaneous malignancy. An accurate search for a primary disease, knowledge of any previous history of neoplasia and the awareness of certain established tumour patterns of metastases (e.g. metastatic bronchial carcinoma to the digits in cats) are crucial to help in establishing the nature of the metastatic process, as cytology alone may not be sufficient. Cutaneous metastases have been reported for the following neoplasms:
• Epithelial tumours:
• Gastrointestinal carcinoma (dogs, cats).
• Renal carcinoma (dogs).
• Transitional cell carcinoma (dogs).
• Pulmonary carcinoma (including the lung–digit syndrome of cats).
• Mammary carcinoma (including inflammatory mammary carcinoma in dogs).
• Neuroendocrine carcinoma of nasal origin (dogs).
• Mesenchymal tumours:
• Haemangiosarcoma (dogs).
• Rhabdomyosarcoma (dogs).
• Osteosarcoma (dogs).
• Round cell tumours:
• Visceral mast cell tumour (dogs and cats).
• Multiple myeloma (dogs).
• Transmissible venereal tumour (dogs).
• Sex cord stromal tumours:
• Seminoma (dogs).
• Leydig cell tumour (dogs).
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