A Case of Gallbladder Cancer with Ovarian Metastasis

Taku Matsumoto, Tetsuo Ajiki, Ippei Matsumoto, Yoshiyasu Mita, Tsunenori Fujita, Haruki Morimoto, Taro Okazaki and Yonson Ku

Department of Surgery, Division of Hepato-Biliary-Pancreatic Surgery, Kobe University Graduate School of Medical Sciences

A 49-year-old woman seen for elevated liver blood chemistry, CA19-9 and computed tomography (CT) gallbladder findings, and ovarian tumors was found to have diffuse gallbladder wall thickening with papillary growth. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a mild low-intensity mass 14 cm in diameter with multiple cysts in the pelvic cavity, necessitating laparotomy based on a diagnosis of double cancer of the gallbladder and ovary. Curative resection was abandoned due to peritoneal gallbladder cancer dissemination, with pathological resection of the ovarian tumor and regional gallbladder lymph node sampling alone done, but which showed ovarian tumor and lymph node metastasis as metastatic gallbladder adenocarcinoma. Immunohistochemical staining confirmed similar overexpression of CA19-9, cytokeratin7, cytokeratin20, and p53 in both specimens. Metastatic ovarian tumors frequently derive from gastrointestinal cancer, but gallbladder cancer with ovarian metastasis is very rare.

Key words
gallbladder cancer, metastatic ovarian cancer, gemcitabine

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Taku Matsumoto Department of Surgery, Division of Hepato-Biliary-Pancreatic Surgery, Kobe University Graduate School of Medical Sciences
7-5-2 Kusunoki-cho, Chuo-ku, Kobe, 650-0017 JAPAN

Accepted
July 22, 2009

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