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Case Reports
. 2017 Jan;96(2):e5640.
doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000005640.

Pancreatic groove cancer

Yuan-Hao Ku  1 , Shih-Chin Chen, Bor-Uei Shyr, Rheun-Chuan Lee, Yi-Ming Shyr, Shin-E Wang
Affiliations
Case Reports

Pancreatic groove cancer

Yuan-Hao Ku et al. Medicine (Baltimore). 2017 Jan.

Abstract

Pancreatic groove cancer is very rare and can be indistinguishable from groove pancreatitis. This study is to clarify the characteristics, clinical features, managements, and survival outcomes of this rare tumor.Brief descriptions were made for each case of pancreatic groove cancer encountered at our institute. Individualized data of pancreatic groove cancer cases described in the literature were extracted and added to our database to expand the study sample size for a more complete analysis.A total of 33 patients with pancreatic groove cancer were included for analysis, including 4 cases from our institute. The median tumor size was 2.7 cm. The most common symptom was nausea or vomiting (89%), followed by jaundice (67%). Duodenal stenosis was noted by endoscopy in 96% of patients. The histopathological examination revealed well differentiated tumor in 43%. Perineural invasion was noted in 90%, and lymphovascular invasion and lymph node involvement in 83%. Overall 1-year survival rate was 93.3%, and 3- or 5-year survival rate was 62.2%, with a median survival of 11.0 months. Survival outcome for the well-differentiated tumors was better than those of the moderate/poorly differentiated ones.Early involvement of duodenum causing vomiting is often the initial presentation, but obstructive jaundice does not always happen until the disease progresses. Tumor differentiation is a prognostic factor for survival outcome. The possibility of pancreatic groove cancer should be carefully excluded before making the diagnosis of groove pancreatitis for any questionable case.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Axial (A) and coronal (B) T1-weighted fat-suppressed gradient-recalled echo MR image reveals a 2.0-cm hypointense lesion (arrow) in pancreatic groove. (C) The tumor becomes isointense in late arterial phase after contrast administration. (D) Diffusion-weighted MR image (b = 800 s/mm2) shows hyperintensity suggesting restricted diffusion.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The cumulative survival curves for well-differentiated and moderate/poorly differentiated pancreatic groove cancers.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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