Hepatocellular carcinoma presenting as extrahepatic mass on computed tomography.

The authors describe an extremely rare case of extrahepatic hepatocellular carcinoma. The patient was a 70-year-old man who was examined by a local doctor because of abdominal discomfort. Barium meal examination demonstrated a defect occupying the lesser curvature of the stomach from the middle of the corpus to the fornix. On an abdominal computed tomography (CT) scan, the lesion, 10 cm in diameter, touched the lower surface of the caudate lobe of the liver. Under laparotomy, the tumor was found between the caudate lobe of the liver and posterior wall of the gastric corpus. As the tumor appeared to be connected with the caudate lobe by a pedicle, only the tumor was resected. Histological examination showed the tumor to be hepatocellular carcinoma of Edmondson's grade III-IV, pedunculated type.