Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Combined fibrolamellar carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma exhibiting biphenotypic antigen expression: a case report
  1. K Tanaka1,
  2. T Honna1,
  3. Y Kitano1,
  4. T Kuroda1,
  5. K Tanaka1,
  6. N Morikawa1,
  7. H Matsuda1,
  8. N Kawashima1,
  9. K Matsuoka2,
  10. J Miyauchi2
  1. 1Department of Surgery, National Centre for Child Health and Development, 2-10-1 Okura, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 157-8535, Japan
  2. 2Department of Clinical Laboratory, National Centre for Child Health and Development
  1. Correspondence to:
 Professor J Miyauchi
 Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Tokyo Dental College Ichikawa General Hospital, 5-11-13 Sugano, Ichikawa, Chiba-ken 272-8513, Japan; jmiyauchitdc.ac.jp

Abstract

Fibrolamellar carcinoma (FLC), a variant of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), very rarely occurs in association with cholangiocarcinoma (CC). This report describes the first case of FLC coexisting with CC (FLC-CC) from Japan. Although the major part of the tumour located in the right lobe of the liver showed the typical features of FLC, CC was admixed with the FLC, not only in the primary hepatic tumour, but also in the lymph node metastases. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed that, although carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), which can be detected with monoclonal antibodies in the cytoplasm and the cell surface of CC cells but not HCC cells, was expressed in only the CC cells in the primary tumour, it was expressed extensively in the cytoplasm of both CC and FLC cells in the metastatic and recurrent tumours. Furthermore, Hep Par 1, a hepatocyte specific antigen, was also expressed in both the FLC and CC cells. These findings suggest that, in this case, both FLC and CC were possibly derived from the same cancer stem cell with the capacity to differentiate into both hepatocytes and bile duct epithelium, and that both the cellular components, therefore, exhibited biphenotypic antigen expression.

  • AFP, α fetoprotein
  • CC, cholangiocarcinoma
  • CEA, carcinoembryonic antigen
  • CT, computed tomography
  • EMA, epithelial membrane antigen
  • FLC, fibrolamellar carcinoma
  • HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma
  • Hep Par 1, hepatocyte paraffin 1
  • fibrolamellar carcinoma
  • cholangiocarcinoma
  • carcinoembryonic antigen
  • pathology
  • immunohistochemistry

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes