Patient with metastatic breast cancer presenting as acute cholecystitis with one-year survival on hormonotherapy

Abstract

Breast cancer has high metastatic potential with distant metastases involving mainly lungs, liver and bones. Less frequently it gives distant spread to other organs. Herein we would like to present a very rare case of an acute cholecystitis which turned out to be a metastatic breast cancer in previously healthy woman. A female patient, 64-years old, presented to the emergency department with symptoms of biliary colic and acute abdomen. During the emergency cholecystectomy, we diagnosed the gallbladder empyema with thickened wall. There were also multiple metastatic nodules in the peritoneal cavity and an excessive amount of free fluid. The emergency physicians diagnosing female patient with the acute abdominal symptoms and a breast cancer history might suspect malignant spread into abdominal organs including gallbladder. On the other hand, acute cholecystitis symptoms might be the first symptoms of metastatic process in the gallbladder from the unknown primary source, which may be breast.