Mass-forming cholangiocarcinoma

Cholangiocarcinoma is the second most common primary liver cancers. It is arising from epithelial cells of the biliary tract. It has been categorized to intrahepatic and extrahepatic. The Intrahepatic orperipheral cholangiocarcinoma can be presented as mass-forming, periductal infiltrating and intraductal growth. Many patients of mass-forming cholangiocarcinoma have symptoms such as abdominal pain about 85% but some patients don’t have any symptoms. This is the difficult cancer to diagnose. While patients were having any symptom, the disease was an advanced stage (unresectable). The diagnostic tools for assess this disease are imaging modalities include ultrasound (US), computed tomography (CT) with contrast, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with contrast. However, the goal standard for confirm diagnosis is tissue pathology. This article showed a case presentation and reviewed the imaging appearance of mass-forming cholangiocarcinoma.   Figure 1  Axial non-contrast (A), axial contrast enhanced in arterial phase (B), axial contrast enhanced in portal venous phase (C) and axial contrast enhanced in 5-minute delay phase (D) CT scans show a large ill-defined hypodense mass at hepatic segment 7/8, about 7.0x7.0x5.0 cm in APxLxH diameter, which has poor enhancement on arterial phase with gradual progressive enhancement on portal venous and 5-minute delay phase. Coronal contrast enhanced in portal venous phase CT scan (E) shows mass confined in peripheral area of right hepatic lobe with hepatic vein abutment.