Successful surgical treatment for metachronous advanced cancers of the gallbladder and the common bile duct--case report.

A 73-year-old woman with a tentative diagnosis of gallbladder cancer had undergone cholecystectomy with liver resection and dissection of regional lymph nodes. Pathological examination of the resected specimen revealed well-differentiated papillary adenocarcinoma of the gallbladder with subserosal invasion. No evidence of metastasis was noted in the dissected lymph nodes. After surgery, she had been disease free in the follow-up study. Ten years after surgery, however, carcinoma arising from the common bile duct was newly found, and pancreaticoduodenectomy with regional lymph nodes dissection was performed. Histological examination confirmed well-differentiated adenocarcinoma of the common bile duct. Lymph nodes had no evidence of malignancy. The patient has been doing well with no evidence of recurrence 20 and 10 years after each operation, respectively. Apparently, these two cancers occurred independently and each surgical treatment for this patient was successful.