2001 Volume 15 Issue 4 Pages 288-295
A 41-year-old woman was seen at the hospital because of jaundice and general fatigue. Laboratory data on admission showed obstructive jaundice and increase of biliary and liver enzymes. Image examination revealed a cystic tumor with papillary prominence inside. The prominence was noticed as high echoic mass on ultrasonography and hypervascular mass on enhanced CT and angiography. Also the cystic mass had a few stones inside. The histopathological diagnosis was cholangiocellular carcinoma with cystic formation. It was so difficult to differentiate the tum or from biliary cystadenoma on image diagnosis. Eighteen cases, including the present case, of cholangiocellular carcinoma with cystic formation because of mucus production and necrotic degeneration of the tumor and so forth have been reported. However, it was very rare in such the present case and one other report that the cause of the cystic formation was regarded as not mucus production but the stricture of the bile duct by the tumor itself.
