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- Abstract
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Background
Carcinoma of the gallbladder (GBC) clinically mimics benign gallbladder diseases and
often escapes detection until advanced stage. Despite the frequency of cholecystectomy,
diagnosis of GBC remains problematic in many situations. We sought to identify pathologic
features that contribute to the difficulty in recognition of GBC.
Methods
We identified 23 patients (ranged from 45 to 86 years, male to female ratio 1:4.5)
with carcinoma involving the gallbladder referred to an academic medical center over
a period of 10 years for study. This includes 10 cases of primary GBC, 6 cases of
metastatic tumor to gallbladder, 6 cases of directly invasive adenocarcinoma arising
elsewhere in the biliary tree, and one case of unidentified origin adenocarcinoma.
Primary tumors include adenocarcinoma not otherwise specified (NOS) in 6 cases, papillary
adenocarcinoma in 2 cases, and single cases of undifferentiated carcinoma and combined
adenocarcinoma and neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC). Metastatic tumors to gallbladder
were from a wide range of primary sites, predominantly the gastrointestinal tract.
- (included) Table 2 - Summary of case details in problematic cases:
- ref. 10. Jain V, Gupta K, Kudva R, Rodrigues GS: A case of ovarian metastasis of gallbladder carcinoma simulating primary ovarian neoplasm: diagnostic pitfalls and review of literature. Int J Gynecol Cancer 2006, 16(Suppl 1):319-321