A case of inflammatory pseudotumour of the gallbladder presenting as a big mass of uncertain behavior

Abstract

Background: Inflammatory pseudotumour has been used to describe an inflammatory or fibrosing tumoral process of an undetermined cause that may involve a variety of organ systems, including the lungs, spleen, liver, lymph nodes, pancreas and extrahepatic bile duct with potential for recurrence and persistent local growth. In this article, we report a patient with a big mass of uncertain nature and behavior. Case presentation: A 60-year-old woman presented with a 1-week history of abdominal pain, fever and jaundice. Six months before she had had right upper quadrant pain that was interpreted as biliary colic. A contrast-enhanced CT scan showed a big mass of soft tissue with diffuse infiltration of the gallbladder, displacement of the transverse colon, hepatic flexure and duodenum. For diagnostic distinction between a chronic inflammatory disease or a neoplasm, exploratory laparotomy was required. Intraoperative exploration disclosed a big mass of hard texture involving the gallbladder, with multiple concrements, hepatoduodenal ligament, right and transverse mesocolon, stomach and duodenum. Cholecystectomy was performed, preserving adjacent organs with macroscopic desmoplastic reaction. Histopathologic examination of the gallbladder showed a spindle cell proliferation with diffuse chronic inflammatory infiltrate of lymphocytes, plasma cells and hyalinized fibrous stroma. No vascular invasion or cellular atypia were evident. Conclusion: Inflammatory pseudotumour is a rare condition and diagnostic distinction from a chronic inflammatory disease or other neoplasm is only possible by histopathologic examination. There is a limited number of case reports in the literature indicating tumor location in the gallbladder.

Application of 18F-FDG PET/CT imaging in gallbladder inflammatory pseudotumor with elevated CA199: a case report and review of literature

“…The CT plain scan disclosed lumpy and lumpy soft tissue shadows with unclear boundaries, and the surrounding gallbladder wall was thickened, with mild enhancement. The reason may be that there were more fibrous tissues and vascular hyperplasia in such lesions, which could not be quickly removed when the contrast agent entered the extravascular space ( 7 , 8 ). On MRI,T1-weighted images can show low signal, isosignal or high signal,T2-weighted images show high signal, which may be related to liquefaction and necrosis in the lesion.…”