> had posted earlier about the extremely large liver mass (weight 2.3 oz,
>Height 2.0 cm, Width 4 cm and Length 6 cm) that was removed from my
>ferret Slater.  The pathology report shows a hepatocellular carcinoma.
>Interestingly the right adrenal pathology report is adrenal cortical
>carcinoma.  My vet has request a review of this report as we were both
>surprised that the pathology would show two different tumor types.
>
>I was wondering if it could be possible that there was two separate
>carcinomas and what is the prognosis i.e. recurrence etc for
>hepatocellular carcinomas.
 
Dear X:
 
This can be a very difficult diagnosis just to make by looking at the
slides.  In many cases, an adrenocortical carcinoma can look just like a
hepatocellular carcinoma - it is only through specialized testing such as
antibodies directed at certain cellular compounds, that a true identity
can be ascertained.
 
Last December, I presented a paper on the differentiation of these two
neoplasms with the antibodies against vimentin (which is seen in
adrenocortical tumors) and a hepatocellular antigen (which is only
positive in hepatocellular carcinomas (malignancies arising from the
liver's cells themselves.)
 
In going over a number of these, the initial diagnoses that I had made on
several of these tumors turned out to be incorrect, and were corrected
only with the use of these cellular markers.
 
If you can arrange for unstained recuts or paraffin blocks to be sent to
me for analysis, I can run the stains on these and give you the
unequivocal diagnosis in this case.
 
With kindest regards,
Bruce Williams DVM
[Posted in FML issue 3736]