A Resectable Case of Solitary Pancreatic Metastasis from Rectal Cancer

Hitoshi Inagaki, Takanori Matsui¹⁾, Hiroshi Kojima¹⁾, Junji Kato¹⁾, Taiki Kojima¹⁾, Yasunobu Fujimitsu¹⁾, Tsuyoshi Kurokawa, Junichi Sakamoto²⁾ and Toshiaki Nonami

Department of Surgery, Aichi Medical University
Department of Surgery, Aichi Prefectural Hospital¹⁾
Department of Epidemiological and Clinical Research Information Management, Kyoto University, Graduate School of Medicine²⁾

A 62-year-old woman underwent lower anterior resection for rectal cancer in January 2000. Her serum CEA rose in November 2000, but image diagnosis showed no metastatic lesion. Computed tomography showed a tumor of the body of the pancreas in August 2001, so we conducted distal pancreatectomy with splenectomy. The tumor was 7×4 cm and pathological findings showed moderately differentiated carcinoma and metastasis from rectal cancer. She underwent postoperative chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil and isovorin, and in July 2003 she remained alive and recurrence-free. Pancreatic metastasis from colorectal cancer is very rare and, only 14 cases of resectable pancreatic metastasis, including ours, have been reported in the Japanese literature. If pancreatic metastasis is solitary and no other metastasis occurs, surgical resection is recommended.

Key words
pancreatic metastasis, rectal cancer

Reprint requests
Hitoshi Inagaki Department of Surgery, Aichi Medical University
21 Karimata, Yazako, Nagakute-cho, Aichi-gun, Aichi, 480-1195 JAPAN

Accepted
December 19, 2003

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