Right hepatic lobectomy and subsegmental resection of the left caudate lobe for gallbladder carcinoma involving the hepatic hilus: preservation of the ventral portion of the left caudate lobe.

A case of gallbladder carcinoma in a 75-year-old woman with familial hyperbilirubinemia and preoperative hepatic dysfunction is presented. Tube cholangiography through a percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage (PTBD) catheter demonstrated a stricture and the hepatic confluence without filling of the gallbladder and showed two bile duct branches arising from the left caudate lobe. Cholangiography also disclosed that the left dorsal branch, which joined the right hepatic bile duct, was involved with tumor, while the left ventral branch, which joined the left hepatic duct, was not. Extended right hepatic lobectomy with resection of the dorsal portion of the left caudate lobe, preserving the ventral portion of the left caudate lobe, was performed. Postoperative cholangiography showed that the ventral branch of the left caudate lobe bile duct was preserved. Precise preoperative anatomic diagnosis of the biliary system in patients with hepatobiliary cancer allows successful subsegmental resection of the caudate lobe.