Adenocarcinoma of the abdominal wall

Wong WL, Tay EH
Correspondence: Dr Wong Wai Loong, wwl_88@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
We report a rare case of adenocarcinoma confined to the umbilicus. A 60-year-old menopausal woman presented with an umbilical lump of four years. Excision biopsy showed adenocarcinoma with an appearance suggestive of metastasis from an ovarian cystadenocarcinoma. Tumour markers for ovarian malignancy were normal. Computer tomography did not reveal any evidence of ovarian malignancy. She defaulted on follow-up. After five years, she presented with a 6-cm irregular periumbilical mass. She agreed to undergo an excision biopsy of the mass with total abdominal hysterectomy and bilateral salpingo-oopherectomy with omentectomy. The frozen section of the tumour showed papillary adenocarcinoma. Histology showed adenocarcinoma favouring serous cancer. There was no tumour seen in the ovaries, uterus and omentum. On follow-up, there was no disease recurrence. The patient has been disease-free for two years post surgery.

Keywords: adenocarcinoma, extraovarian primary serous carcinoma, primary peritoneal carcinoma, umbilical tumour metastasis
Singapore Med J 2008; 49(12): e359-e360