A case in which ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration was useful in the diagnosis of liver metastasis of gallbladder cancer

Abstract

A 79-year-old man had undergone an extended cholecystectomy (pStage I) for gallbladder cancer three years previously. Contrast-enhanced computed tomography showed a 25-mm hypovascularized hepatic mass in the left lateral lobe. Because we would not have been able to obtain adequate samples from the lesion using ultrasound-guided biopsy, we performed ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA). The patient was diagnosed with liver metastasis secondary to gallbladder cancer. Our findings suggest that EUS-FNA may be useful for the histological diagnosis of left hepatic lobe lesions that are difficult to puncture percutaneously.