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Microscopic incipient hepatocellular carcinoma found incidentally in a routine liver biopsy specimen
Author(s) -
Hirooka Noboru,
Nitta Yoshiro,
Tsunoda Takabumi,
Kitazawa Eiji,
Sato Junichi,
Machii Akira,
Murakami Yoshitsugu,
Takahashi Manabu,
Kondo Fukuo
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
hepatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.488
H-Index - 361
eISSN - 1527-3350
pISSN - 0270-9139
DOI - 10.1002/hep.1840120216
Subject(s) - hepatocellular carcinoma , lesion , pathology , biopsy , medicine , hepatology , cirrhosis , nodule (geology) , carcinoma , atypical adenomatous hyperplasia , focal nodular hyperplasia , radiology , cancer , adenocarcinoma , biology , paleontology
Abstract A microscopic atypical focus suggestive of hepatocellular carcinoma is reported. The lesion, 0.3 mm in diameter, was found by chance in a liver biopsy specimen taken from a cirrhotic patient; it was characterized histologically by cytoplasmic basophilia, hypercellularity (high nucleus‐to‐cell ratio) and microacinar structures. The reticulin framework of the focus was relatively sparse compared with the surrounding noncancerous area. The focus had developed in a regenerative nodule apparently no different from other regenerative nodules of the cirrhosis and showed no accompanying preneoplastic lesion such as adenomatous hyperplasia. A thorough search for the primary lesion, including ultrasonographic imaging and superselective hepatic arteriography, demonstrated no mass lesion in the liver. Therefore, the lesion may have been an incipient de novo hepatocellular carcinoma, and this may be the first report of such a lesion discovered in a biopsy sample. (H EPATOLOGY 1990;12:291–294).