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  • Title: Hepatocellular adenoma. Its transformation to carcinoma in a user of oral contraceptives.
    Author: Tesluk H, Lawrie J.
    Journal: Arch Pathol Lab Med; 1981 Jun; 105(6):296-9. PubMed ID: 6263214.
    Abstract:
    Hepatocellular carcinoma arose in a hepatic adenoma associated with the use of oral contraceptives. Although surgical resection was successful, the patient died of sepsis a month postoperatively. No metastases were found at the time of autopsy. Ultrastructural studies of the tumor showed phospholipidosis suggestive of drug-induced toxicity. Hepatic tumors have been associated with oral contraceptive (OC) use. Klatkin's literature review of 1976 yielded a total of 237 cases of OC-associated hepatic tumors; 9% of these were considered malignant. This paper presents a case of liver cell adenoma which developed when a 34-year old patient was using OCs. Contraceptive use was discontinued and the lesion regressed, but a hepatocellular carcinoma developed 3 years later. The woman presented in 1976 complaining of acute right upper quadrant abdominal pain. A hemorrhagic hepatic tumor 16 cm in diameter was diagnosed after an exploratory laparotomy. The patient discontinued use of Ovulen 21 which she had been using for 5 years and was followed up with serial liver scans. The mass shrank to approximately 5 cm in diameter by January 1979 and remained stable until November 1979 when liver scan revealed that the tumor had reverted to its 16 cm size. In December 1979, a partial hepatectomy was done but it was complicated by a cardiac arrest. A postpericardiotomy syndrome developed after the operation. 5 weeks postoperatively, in January 1980, the patient suffered constrictive pericarditis and a pericardial stripping operation was done. The patient later died of sepsis with high output cardiac failure, shock, and adult respiratory distress syndrome. Ultrastructural studies of the tumor revealed a well-differentiated hepatocellular carcinoma. The features of the tumor (e.g., travecular growth, necrosis, hemorrhage) have been the criteria, in addition to vascular invasion and metastases, used to classify previously reported cases as malignant. Autopsy of the patient revealed no metastatic lesions. Cytoplasmic structures suggestive of a phospholipid disturbance were also observed and were thought to be related to drug interference with phospholipid metabolism. An interesting observation was the regression of the tumor after discontinuance of pill use. The mechanisms of its renewed growth and its malignant change remain unknown. Lesions such as this should be given a guarded prognosis even if the appearance is benign. Possible metabolic or enzyme deficiency in the few women in whom hepatic tumors develop is raised.
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