Ciliated hepatic foregut cyst: Report of a case on fine‐needle aspiration

Abstract

Ciliated hepatic foregut cyst (CHFC) is a rare, benign, solitary cyst consisting of ciliated columnar epithelium. They are lined by a layer of ciliated columnar cells and contain mucoid material and debris. It is the ciliated epithelium that distinguishes them from other hepatic cysts. The cyst is generally found incidentally on radiologic imaging or during surgical exploration. There has been an increase in the number of reports of CHFC during the past 15 years in the surgical pathology literature, presumably because of increased availability of various radiologic imaging modalities. Although it is rare, CHFC should be included in the differential diagnosis of cystic lesions of the liver and is important to consider in aspirates obtained for the evaluation of possible neoplastic disease. We report a case diagnosed by fine-needle aspiration for a liver cyst discovered incidentally during the evaluation of acute pancreatitis.

Ciliated hepatic foregut cyst: report of three cases and review of imaging features

“…The differential diagnosis for this lesion includes other unilocular hepatic lesions, such as simple hepatic cyst, echinococcal cyst, epidermoid cyst, pyogenic abscess, intrahepatic choledochal cyst, mesenchymal hamartoma, hypovascular solid tumor, and hepatobiliary cystadenoma or cystadenocarcinoma [5, 9, 10]. …”

Laparoscopic excision of large ciliated hepatic foregut cyst

“…Simple cysts are usually located in the right hepatic lobe and are more prevalent in women. Serologic tumour markers can be confounding, as elevated CA19-9 levels have been found in association with benign CHFC[7]. An aspirate of hepatocytes admixed with ciliated cells and mucus cells distinguish CHFC from other radiologically benign-appearing entities among many of the considered lesions, which are easily differentiated by their typical epithelial lining, cyst.…”

“…In the last 150 years, approximately 103 cases have been reported in the literature world-wide, only four of which describe laparoscopic excision. [34] We report 5 th case of a patient who recently underwent successful laparoscopic excision of a CHFC and the rationale for attempting laparoscopic removal of these lesions and review of the literatures.…”

Ciliated hepatic foregut cyst

“…The characteristic features of CHFCs on FNAC are the cellular smear with scattered benign-appearing ciliated columnar cells arranged in both tissue fragments and singly in a mucoid background. Other features supporting the diagnosis include the presence of fragment of smooth muscle, goblet cells, and macrophages in the cell population 5. However, the absence of these features does not completely rule out the diagnosis, because in near one-quarter of adult cases, there is inadequacy of cellular material on aspiration 1.…”