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Elementary, My Dear Watson

Servicio de Oncología Médica, Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Spain

To the Editor:

Capecitabine is an effective treatment in metastatic breast cancer.^1-2 The dosing schedule may be modified to manage hand-foot syndrome.³ Fingerprints are individual and nontransferable marks. Dermatoglyphics is the study of the patterns of ridges on the skin of the fingers, and are of interest in medicine, anthropology, criminology, and security. For several years, the United States international airports have fingerprinted foreign visitors. Two index fingerprint images are taken from each visa applicant and matched against those of several hundred million visa holders to detect whether the new applicant already has a visa under a different identity. Fingerprints taken from United States' visitors are compared with the original prints to verify every identity and are matched to a list of suspected criminals.⁴

We present a 39-year-old woman who started capecitabine as a second-line monotherapy for a HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer. Grade 2 hand-foot syndrome appeared and a dose reduction was needed following established management (Fig 1) . A partial response was achieved and maintenance therapy allowed her to return to job as a flight stewardess.

View larger version (111K): [in this window] [in a new window] [PowerPoint Slide for Teaching]   Fig 1. Loss of the ridges on the skin of the fingers.

Monotherapy capecitabine dose-reductions may be required once hand-foot syndrome has appeared. However, this toxicity might imply definitive fingerprints modifications. To summarize, foreign patients taking capecitabine and entering United States' ports may have trouble with regard to fingerprint identification.

AUTHORS' DISCLOSURES OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The authors indicated no potential conflicts of interest.

REFERENCES

1. Gelmon K, Chan A, Harbeck N: The role of capecitabine in first-line treatment for patients with metastatic breast cancer. Oncologist 11S:42-51, 2006[Abstract/Free Full Text]

2. Segalla J, Tosello C, Ribeiro R, et al: Quality of life (QoL) improvements with capecitabine in patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). EJC 2005;S3:115

3. Mackean M, Planting A, Twelves C, et al: Phase I and pharmacologic study of intermittent twice-daily oral therapy with capecitabine in patients with advanced and/or metastatic cancer. J Clin Oncol 16:2977-2985, 1998[Abstract/Free Full Text]

4. Wein LM, Baveja M: Using fingerprint image quality to improve the identification performance of the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology Program. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102:7772-7775, 2005[Abstract/Free Full Text]

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This Article Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Save to my personal folders Download to citation manager Rights & Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by García-Saénz, J. A. Articles by Díaz-Rubio, E. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by García-Saénz, J. A. Articles by Díaz-Rubio, E. Social Bookmarking                            What's this?