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A young woman taking contraceptive hormone treatment for many years developed a hepatocytic adenoma discovered after a massive hemorrhage into the tumor. The patient recovered after a hepatectomy. A total of 160 such cases have been reported in the published literature, and recovery occurred after excision of the lesion in the majority of cases. Stopping the oestrogen-progestogen therapy seems to avoid recurrence but it is still not known whether this is sufficient to produce regression of a benign tumoral lesion.

The pathologic features, the terminology, the etiolgoy, and the causal relations of benign tumours of the liver associated with the use of oral contraceptives were reviewed during a study on six new cases. According to the literature the following points are emphasized: these tumours can be divided into two distinctive conditions, they are commonly called focal nodular hyperplasia and liver cell adenoma, whereas the name hamartoma seems rarely appropriated, they occur without any use of oral contraceptive, but this practice is probably responsible for their increasing number.