ABSTRACT
Background: The infiltration of venous blood vessels in gallbladder carcinoma and its importance as a Prognostic factor has not been well studied. Victoria blue stain has been used to identify vascular involvement in gastric and thyroidal carcinomas. Aim: To assess blood vessel infiltration using Victoria blue stain in gallbladder carcinomas. Material and methods: One hundred forty eight samples of gallbladder carcinoma, coming from 24 men and 123 women aged 60.4ñ12.2 years old, were studied. They were stained with Victoria blue stain to quantify blood vessel invasion. Results: Twenty nine percent of tumors had blood vessel infiltration, 61 percent had lymph vessel and 20 percent had perineural infiltration. Lymph vessel or perineural involvement was found in 81por ciento and 31 percent of those tumors with blood vessel infiltration, respectively. Perineural infiltration was associated with lymph or vascular involment in 93 and 40 percent of tumors, respectively. None of the early carcinomas had blood vessel infiltration, whereas 33 percent of advanced tumors had this type of infiltration (p< 0.001). No differences in vascular infiltration were observed according to the differentiation of the tumor Conclusions: Blood vessel infiltration was observed only in advanced gallbladder carcinomas and was tightly related to the degree of gallbladder wall infiltration. The presence of perineural infiltration was the best ma rker of 1ymph or blood vessel infiltration