A Case of Mucin-Producing Pancreatic Cancer with Invasion of the Pancreatc Parenchyma

Hideki Machishi, Minoru Kurata, Makoto Suzaki, Hideaki Sakai

Department of Surgery, Kinan Hospital

So-called mucin-producing pancreatic cancer is a new clinical entity that has been detected in Japn. It is of special interest that this disease has a better prognosis than ordinary pancreatic cancer. We report on a patient with mucin-producing pancreatic cancer, and in addition provide a clinical analysis of 45 cases previously reported in Japan. A 59-year-old man was admitted to our hospital with pain in the left upper quadrant of the abdomen and in the back. US, CT and ERCP findngs revealed a possible tumor of the body of the pancreas, and total pancreatectomy was subsequently performed. The pathological diagnosis on the resected specimen was papillary adenocarcinoma with slight invasion of the pancreatic parencyma. The patient had no signs of recurrence for almost 3 years after the operation. Then marked elevation of tumor markers was seen at a regular check up. He was readmitted to our hospital for evaluation, but he died of progressive dyspnea 1 month after readmssion. His postoperavie course lasted 3 years and 6 months. According to our review of past cases, the tumors in 16 of 39 patients (41.0%) showed invasion of the pancreatic parenchyma, and 4 of these 16 patients (25.0%) died of metastases. However, there were no deaths in the patients with no invasion. We conclude that tumor invasion of the pancreatic parenchyma is one of the poor prognostic factors in this condition.

Key words
mucin-producing pancreatic cancer, invasion of the pancreatic parenchyma, papillary adenocarcinoma of the pancreas cancer

Reprint requests
Hideki Machishi Department of Surgery, Kinan Hospital
4750 Atawa, Mihama-cho, Minamimuro-gun, Miel, 519-52 JAPAN

Accepted
November 8, 1989

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