ABSTRACT
Objective In embryology, the pancreas is formed by fusion of the ventral pancreas(VP) and the dorsal pancreas(DP) during the seventh week of gestation. The aim of this study was to clarify whether there were differences in the clinicopathological characteristics of the carcinoma of pancreatic head(PhCa) arising from the VP and DP. MethodsResected specimens from 43 cases with PhCa were studied histologically and immunohistochemically. The VP and DP were distinguished by islet shape and amount of cells producing pancreatic polypeptide(PP) in normal pancreatic parenchyma adjacent to the main tumor. ResultsThere were 20 cases of PhCa from VP(VP-group) and 23 cases of DP (DP-group) in this study. The prognosis of the 20 patients in VP-group was significantly better than that of the 23 in DP-group ( P