A Case of Choriocarcinoma of the Major Duodenal Papilla

Yasunori Kurahashi, Yoshiharu Shirakata, Koji Hirata, Hisashi Shinohara, Kazumi Itoi¹⁾, Atsuhiko Maki, Yoshifumi Mizuno and Rokuro Mimura²⁾

Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Department of Chest Surgery¹⁾ and Department of Pathology²⁾, Hyogo Prefectural Amagasaki Hospital

Choriocarcinoma of the major duodenal papilla is extremely rare because, to the best of our knowledge, it has never been reported in the literature. An 80-year-old woman hospitalized with dysbasia, cholangitis with elevated hepatobiliary enzymes, and marked biliary tract dilatation was found in upper gastrointestinal endoscopy to have cancer of the major duodenal papilla. After the biliary tract was drained, she underwent pancreatoduodenectomy and regional lymph node dissection. Histopathologically, well- to moderately differentiated tubular adenocarcinoma was observed at the tumor border, and large atypical trophoblast-like cells dominated the invasive tumor. Positive immunohistochemical staining for the human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) beta subunit was observed, yielding a diagnosis of choriocarcinoma of the major duodenal papilla.

Key words
chiriocarcinoma, papilla of Vater (major duodenal papilla), duodenum

Reprint requests
Yasunori Kurahashi Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Hyogo Prefectural Amagasaki Hospital
1-1-1 Higashidaimotsu-cho, Amagasaki, 660-0828 JAPAN

Accepted
March 24, 2010

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