Skull metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma in normal liver

Abstract

Background: So far hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common liver malignant tumour; it is rarely encountered on a healthy liver (9). The metastasis from HCC cancer are seen in lymph nodes (16%–40%) and lungs (34%–70%), (1,3,4,5,7,8), bone metastasis is unusual and some locations stay rare among them the skull (2,4,5). We report here a case of a patient operated in our department for skull metastasis. That patient was followed for hepatocellular carcinoma in digestive surgery department. Case presentation: The patient is a 57 years old male presenting HCC on healthy liver, the patient was referred to our department by digestive surgery colleagues to manage a parietal subcutaneous mass; brain CT scans were performed objectified a calvarial osteolytic process. We remove the tumour and we put a cranioplasty using surgical cement, later the histological studies were in favour of secondary location of hepatocellular carcinoma. Conclusion: Skull metastasis from hepatocellular carcinoma is rare, reporting such cases strengthen the idea of evoking HCC metastasis in the differential diagnosis of cranial subcutaneous mass.

Keywords

• hepatocellular carcinoma
• metastasis
• skull tumour