Double cancer - hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma with a spindle-cell variant

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) with a spindle-cell variant is very rare. We report here a surgical patient who had double cancer - hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and ICC with a spindle-cell variant. In this 70-year-old man, who had a history of hepatic resection for HCC about 2 years previously, two large discrete masses were identified in the right lobe of the liver. A right lobectomy of the liver was performed. Pathological findings revealed that one tumor was a typical HCC, and the other was ICC with sarcomatous lesions. Immunohistochemical examinations of the sarcomatous lesions in ICC demonstrated that some of the spindle cells were positive for keratin, epithelial membrane antigen, and vimentin, but negative for S-100 protein, desmin, and actin. From these findings, we concluded that the sarcomatous lesions of ICC were not a true sarcoma, but sarcomatous transformation of cholangiocarcinoma cells, that is, a spindle-cell variant of ICC.