Hepatoid
carcinoma is a special type of extrahepatic
tumor associated with hepatic differentiation, and has the morphological and functional features of
hepatocellular carcinoma. Hepatoid
carcinoma of the gallbladder is very rarely reported in the literature. We report a case of hepatoid
carcinoma of the gallbladder in a 71-year-old female who presented with
abdominal pain and was first diagnosed as
cholelithiasis with
cholecystitis. The microscopic findings of the gallbladder after
cholecystectomy showed an area of
tumor with polygonal cells, eosinophilic cytoplasm, distinct cell borders, round vesicular nuclei and prominent nucleoli, arranged in trabecular pattern resembling
hepatocellular carcinoma intermingled with areas of
adenocarcinoma or
cholangiocarcinoma. The specimen from the pancreas also showed the same type of
tumor cells. Histochemically, some of
tumor cells were positive for
Victoria Blue, Stein, and PAS. The immunohistochemistry for
alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) showed strong intra cytoplasmic positivity, both in
tumor cells with hepatic differentiation and
tumor cells with bile duct epithelium differentiation. Based on these findings, this case was diagnosed as hepatoid
carcinoma of the gallbladder with
metastasis to the pancreas. This is the first case that has been reported in our department.