ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Three cases of pancreatic serous cystadenoma and endocrine tumour

Stella Blandamura¹, Anna Parenti¹, Barbara Famengo¹, Alessandra Canesso¹, Paolo Moschino³, Claudio Pasquali², Sara Pizzi¹, Vincenza Guzzardo¹ and Vito Ninfo¹

¹ Department of Oncological and Surgical Sciences, Section of Pathological Anatomy, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
² Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Section of Surgical Clinic IV, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
³ Section of General Surgery, Azienda Ospedaliera, Padova, Italy

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr S Blandamura
Department of Oncological and Surgical Sciences, Section of Pathological Anatomy, University of Padova, Via Gabelli 61, 35121 Padova, Italy; stella.blandamura{at}unipd.it

Aims: To report three cases of serous cystadenoma and endocrine tumour in the same pancreas, to review the literature and to evaluate the clinicopathological features of the tumours.

Cases: Three women (71, 57 and 31 years old) were admitted to hospital, two for diseases unrelated to the pancreas and the third for increasing obstructive jaundice in von Hippel-Lindau disease. Preoperative examination showed two distinct lesions in the first patient and only cystic lesions in the other two.

Results: Histological examination of the pancreas showed one serous oligocystic adenoma associated with a benign, well-differentiated endocrine tumour, one serous oligocystic adenoma associated with an endocrine microadenoma, and a von Hippel-Lindau-related cystic neoplasm with a well-differentiated endocrine carcinoma.

Conclusions: Serous cystadenoma associated with endocrine tumour shows some clinicopathological differences with respect to the two tumours considered separately, and with respect to von Hippel-Lindau-related cases, although there is no convincing evidence at present to justify considering this association as a separate entity.

Abbreviations: MEN, multiple endocrine neoplasia; MUC, mucin; NSE, neurone-specific enolase; PAS, periodic acid Schiff; SCN, serous cystic neoplasm; SMA, serous microcystic adenoma; SOIA, serous oligocystic ill-defined adenoma; VHL, von Hippel-Lindau disease; VHL-CN, von Hippel-Lindau-associated cystic neoplasm

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