SEPARATE HISTOGENESIS OF COMBINED HEPATOCELLULAR AND CHOLANGIOCELLULAR CARCINOMA IN 2 PATIENTS

Double primary liver carcinomas, i.e. hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) a nd cholangiocellular carcinoma (CCC) are rare. Two patients in whom do uble primary liver carcinomas were surgically resected are described h erein. Case 1: A 51-year-old Japanese man with chronic type B hepatiti s underwent hepatectomy for primary HCG with intrahepatic metastasis. Case 2: A 67-year-old Japanese man with a history of rectal cancer and CCC underwent lateral hepatic segmentectomy for a suspected recurrenc e of intrahepatic CCC. Lack of direct contact between tumors, no evide nce of histological transition and clearly different immunohistochemic al staining fdr cytokeratin support a distinct histogenesis of the tum ors in these two patients. The findings indicate that combined HCC and CCC can arise synchronously or metachronously as an intrahepatic doub le cancer.