We herein report a patient with breast cancer who developed dermatomyositis (DM) immediately after mastectomy. She had a history of severe drug eruption during neoadjuvant chemotherapy six months previously. Within a month after the operation, myalgia and rash, including Gottron's papules, developed, and skeletal-muscle enzymes elevated, so she was diagnosed with probable DM according to the Bohan and Peter criteria. In many neoplastic DM cases, the course of the disease parallels the course of the malignancy. Possible mechanisms were suggested to explain the development of DM in the present case and offer new insight into autoimmune diseases.
Keywords: chemotherapy; paraneoplastic dermatomyositis; severe drug eruption; surgery.