Epidemiology, survival and risk of subsequent primary malignancies in patients with digital papillary adenocarcinoma: a retrospective study of 213 patients in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program

Digital papillary adenocarcinoma (DPAc) is a rare and aggressive cutaneous malignancy of sweat gland derivation. We conducted a retrospective study of 213 patients with DPAc using the 17 registries of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program. We estimated the incidence of DPAc to be 0.11 per million persons per year, with the incidence rising over the past two decades. Our study shows DPAc to most commonly affect White men, typically in their forties to sixties. We noted a 5-year disease-specific survival of 98.3% and 5-year overall survival of 95.7%. We also showed advanced age to be associated with more aggressive disease and identified tumour size as an independent risk factor affecting disease-specific survival. Our results also suggest that patients with DPAc have an elevated risk of developing subsequent primary malignancies, with men being at increased risk of developing lung/bronchial neoplasms and women being at increased risk of developing breast cancer.