Implantation metastasis of unsuspected gallbladder carcinoma after laparoscopy.

In a 73-year-old woman elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy for symptomatic cholelithiasis had to be changed to open cholecystectomy because of technical problems. Unsuspected microscopic adenocarcinoma of the gallbladder was found after operation. Two months later abdominal-wall metastasis developed at the periumbilical and the right abdominal laparoscopic tract through which the laparoscope and instruments had been introduced and removed. The paramedian abdominal wall incision for the laparotomy was free of tumor.