A Case of Adenoendocrine Cell Carcinoma of the Gallbladder

Norio Yukawa, Daisuke Machida, Masahiro Kanari, Atsushi Nagano, Jun Fujisawa, Hiroshi Matsukawa, Satoru Shimizu, Naomi Kawano* and Yasushi Rino**

Department of Surgery and Department of Pathology*, Yokohama Minami Kyosai Hospital
Department of General Surgery, Yokohama City University Hospital**

Adenoendocrine cell carcinoma of the gallbladder is rare and has a dismal prognosis. Only 54 cases were reported in Japan from 1983 to 2004. A 59-year-old man was found to have an elevated lesion of the gallbladder in abdominal ultrasonography. This lesion grew gradually to almost 20 mm in diameter as seen in CT and MRI. In laparoscopic cholecystectomy, the intraoperative frozen pathological diagnosis was suspected undifferentiated carcinoma, necessitating lymph node dissection and liver bed resection by open laparotomy. Neither liver metastasis nor peritoneal dissemination was seen. Immunohistochemical studies of tumor cells were positive for NCAM staining. The definitive pathological diagnosis was adenoendocrine cell carcinoma. Postoperatively, chemotherapy with CDDP and VP-16 and radiation therapy were conducted as is done in small cell carcinoma of lung. He has continued disease-free in the 24 months since resection.

Key words
gallbladder cancer, adenoendocrine cell carcinoma, chemotherapy

Reprint requests
Norio Yukawa Department of Surgery, Yokohama Minami Kyosai Hospital
1-21-1 Mutsuura-higashi, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama, 236-0037 JAPAN

Accepted
November 30, 2005

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