Background:

cutaneous metastasis occurs between 0.7 % and 9 % of cancer patients. They tend to be a late sign in the evolution of most neoplasms, although at times they may be their presentation. Neoplasms of lung, breast, melanoma, oral cavity, colon, liver, ovary and stomach are responsible for 80-90 % of cutaneous metastasis in adults.

Objective:

to present the case of a patient with a metastasis of an epidermoid carcinoma of the lung, the liver and on the skin of the nose, constituting the clown's nose sign.

Clinical case:

a 72-year-old black patient, smoker of more than 50 years, with a history of arterial hypertension, who comes to the hospital because he presented an inflamed and ulcerated lesion of the skin of the nose which had been treated as a superficial soft tissue infection. In the clinical study, as well as histopathological, an epidermoid carcinoma of the lung with little differentiation, with liver metastasis and the skin of the nose was demonstrated. The patient died two months after diagnosis.

Conclusions:

the presence of skin lesions and, in the case of the nose particularly, sometimes indicate more specific studies to search oncological diseases such as the case of the clown nose sign.

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