title: Definitive diagnosis of a duplicate gallbladder can only be made intraoperatively: report of a case.
abstract: Duplicated gallbladders are rare congenital anomalies that are important in clinical practice as they may cause clinical, surgical, and diagnostic problems. Here, we describe the case of a 79-year-old female patient who presented with acute cholangitis. Abdominal ultrasonography, endoscopic ultrasonography, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging revealed an intrahepatic cystic lesion, suggesting communication with the intrahepatic bile duct; no evidence of a polypoid lesion within the cystic lesion was observed. Based on these findings, intrahepatic cholangiectasis, intrahepatic bile duct cystadenoma, and the presence of a duplicated gallbladder were suspected, and surgery was performed. During surgery, a tube inserted into the common bile duct from a cystic duct facilitated intraoperative cholangiography, which indicated the presence of a duplicated gallbladder. Thus, we believe that a duplicated gallbladder should be an additional consideration when typical gallbladder disease symptoms are present under certain circumstances. A multimodal imaging approach can help to establish the diagnosis preoperatively or intraoperatively.
authors.affiliation: Department of Gastroenterological Surgery, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kumamoto University, 1-1-1 Honjo, Kumamoto-shi, 860-8556, Japan, zakkymm950019@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Nobuyuki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ozaki
authors.forename: Daisuke
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hashimoto
authors.forename: Yoshiaki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ikuta
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chikamoto
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takamori
authors.forename: Hideo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Baba
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000013:Congenital Abnormalities / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D005704:Gallbladder / Q000002:abnormalities*; D005705:Gallbladder Diseases / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D007432:Intraoperative Period