Independent occurrence of hepatocellular and cholangiocellular cancer nodules in the liver.

We treated a patient in whom hepatocellular and cholangiocellular cancer nodules in the liver were of independent occurrence. A 57-year-old Japanese male was admitted with a diagnosis of liver tumour, detected by a scan on a follow-up study of chronic liver disease. Computed tomography and hepatic angiography demonstrated two nodules located on different sites of the right lobe of the liver and which were suggestive of primary liver cancers. He underwent hepatic resection and each tumour was histologically proved to arise independently from hepatocellular and bile duct origins. This may be the first report of patient surgically treated for two different types of carcinoma in the liver.