Solid-pseudopapillary neoplasm of the pancreas or pancreatic endocrine tumor?

Solid-pseudopapillary neoplasm (SPN) of the pancreas is relatively rare. There are some similarities between SPN and pancreatic endocrine tumor (PET), especially the non-functioning ones, in clinical and pathological manifestations. Even the results of immunohistochemistry reported in the literature showed that the expression profiles of the two tumors overlapped, which sometimes results in difficulty distinguishing the two entities. In recent years, studies have shown that the vast majority of SPN harbor a point mutation on exon 3 of β-catenin gene, which has not yet been discovered in other pancreas tumors.

A research article published on February 28, 2010 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. A total of 24 cases pathologically diagnosed as SPN or PET, including 10 SPN and 14 PET, were reviewed.

Their results showed SPN of the pancreas, compared with PET, is a cystic-solid or cystic tumor with a larger size mostly seen in young women, and has the morphological features of hemorrhage and necrosis on the cut surface and exclusive pseudopapillary structures on light microscopy caused by cellular dyscohesive degeneration. If necessary, immunostaining of b-catenin and E-cadherin is quite helpful to make the differential diagnosis.

Reference: Liu BA, Li ZM, Su ZS, She XL. Pathological differential diagnosis of solid-pseudopapillary neoplasm and endocrine tumors of the pancreas. World J Gastroenterol 2010; 16(8): 1025-1030

http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/16/1025.asp

Correspondence to: Bao-An Liu, Professor, Department of Pathology, Xiangya Basic Medical School, Central-south University, 110# Tongzipo Road, Changsha 410013, Hunan Province, China. lba118@yahoo.com.cn

Telephone: +86-731-82651410 Fax: +86-731-82651410

World Journal of Gastroenterology (WJG), a leading international journal in gastroenterology and hepatology, has established a reputation for publishing first class research on esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, viral hepatitis, colorectal cancer, and H. pylori infection and provides a forum for both clinicians and scientists. WJG has been indexed and abstracted in Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, Science Citation Index Expanded (also known as SciSearch) and Journal Citation Reports/Science Edition, Index Medicus, MEDLINE and PubMed, Chemical Abstracts, EMBASE/Excerpta Medica, Abstracts Journals, Nature Clinical Practice Gastroenterology and Hepatology, CAB Abstracts and Global Health. ISI JCR 2008 IF: 2.081. WJG is a weekly journal published by WJG Press. The publication dates are the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th day of every month. WJG is supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 30224801 and No. 30424812, and was founded with the name of China National Journal of New Gastroenterology on October 1, 1995, and renamed WJG on January 25, 1998.