Southern Medical Journal:

July 2006 - Volume 99 - Issue 7 - pp 785-786

doi: 10.1097/01.smj.0000223698.63739.85
Special Sections: Letters to the Editor

Paraganglioma of the Hepatic

Duct: A Personal
Commentary
Sarma, Deba P. MD

Author Information

Department of Pathology; Creighton University

Medical School; Omaha, NE

To the Editor:

In 1980, we reported a case of paraganglioma of the

hepatic duct in a 37-year-old man.1 At that time, we
claimed that our case was the first such report in the
English literature. The acceptance and subsequent
publication of this case report was not easy. We
received six rejections from various journals, such
as the Archives of Pathology, Human Pathology,
Journal of Clinical Pathology, and the American
Journal of Gastroenterology. We understood that
our claim of the first report in the English literature
might have been a cause for some of those
rejections. Finally, we sent the article to the
Southern Medical Journal. Dr. John B. Thomison,
the editor (himself a pathologist) accepted our
article for publication.
Many years later, one of the authors received a
telephone call from one of the editors revising the
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP)
Fascicle 27 on the tumors of the gallbladder,
extrahepatic bile ducts, and ampulla of Vater. He
told me that his literature search had yielded a
single report of a paraganglioma of the hepatic duct
published in the Southern Medical Journal.1 He
wanted to review the microscopic slides and the
electron microscopic pictures of the case, which
were promptly sent to him. The AFIP Fascicle 27
published in 2000 describes our case with a single
reference to our article published in 1980 in the
Southern Medical Journal.2

The paraganglioma of the biliary tract remains a

rare tumor in man. Since our first report in the
Southern Medical Journal in 1980,1 only three
additional cases have been published in the English
literature. One case of paraganglioma occurred in
the common hepatic duct,3 and the other two in the
bile duct.2,4 A review of the literature by the authors
of these reports did not disclose any reported case
before 1980.

Deba P. Sarma, MD

Department of Pathology

Creighton University Medical School

Omaha, NE
References

1. Sarma DP, Rodriguez FH Jr, Hoffmann EO.

Paraganglioma of the hepatic duct. South Med J
1980;73:1677-1678.
Cited Here... | View Full Text | PubMed

2. Albores-Saavedra J, Henson DE, Klimstra DS.

Tumors of the gallbladder, extrahepatic bile ducts,
and ampulla of Vater. In: Atlas of Tumor
Pathology, Fascicle 27, Third Series. Washington,
DC, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, 2000, pp
221-222, 226.
Cited Here...

3. Hitanant S, Sriumpai S, Na-songkla S, et al.

Paraganglioma of the common hepatic duct. Am J
Gastroenterol 1984;79:485-488.
Cited Here... | PubMed

4. Caceres M, Mosquera LF, Shih JA, et al.

Paraganglioma of the bile duct. South Med J
2001;94:515-518.
Cited Here... | View Full Text | PubMed