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Polycystic liver and other hepatic masses mimicking gall-bladder disease

Departments of Radiology, University of California School of Medicine and Veterans Administration Hospital, San Francisco, California

D. K. Westmoreland, M.D.

Department of Radiology, University of Tennessee College of Medicine, Memphis, Tennessee, USA

This excerpt was created in the absence of an abstract.

Hepatic and biliary tract diseases can both present as pain or mass in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen. Occasionally, hepatic masses impress the gall-bladder, simulating gall-bladder disease both symptomatically and radiographically. Ultrasonography and computed tomography (CT) imaging have facilitated the preoperative differentiation between hepatic and biliary tract disease and, further, between cysts (polycystic liver disease) and solid tumours. We wish to report a patient with hepatic masses and review similar reports to illustrate that when filling defects are noted in the gallbladder on the cholecystogram, hepatic disease can then be differentiated from biliary tract disease without the need for laparotomy.

A 45-year-old hypertensive woman was admitted to our hospital because of a six-month history of an enlarging abdominal mass and a sensation of pressure and fullness. She had no associated pain, jaundice, nausea, vomiting, or change in bowel habits.

^* Present address to which requests for reprints should be sent: Department of Radiology, M–396, University of California, San Francisco, California 94143.

Received for publication August 1, 1978. Revision received March 1, 1979.