Pathologic study on the perineural invasion in 513 cases of pancreatic cancer / 中华胰腺病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objectives To investigate the characteristics of neural invasion of pancreatic cancer as well as its relationship with other clinicopathological factors. Methods The neural invasion situation of 491 cases of ductal adenocarcinoma and other 22 pancreatic malignancies, 41 cases of benign tumor of pancreas and 21 cases of chronic pancreatitis was observed under light microscope, and its relationship with other clinicopathological factors was analyzed. Results The rate of neural invasion in ductal adenocarcinoma (74%) was much higher than in other types of pancreatic neoplasm (23% ,P ＜ 0.01). Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cell often invaded through peripheral nerve membrane into inner nerve fiber bundle, sometimes even invaded the whole cross-sectional nerve fiber. But neural invasion was not associated with differentiation of the tumor. The occurrence of chronic inflammation in the para-tumoral pancreas (52%) was also higher than that in other types of malignant (14%) or benign lesions (15% ,P ＜0.01). Lymphocytes neural invasion rate in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma was 65%, which were significantly higher than those in other types of malignant (36%) or benign lesions (22%, P ＜ 0.01). Neural invasion rate in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma was associated with paratumoral chronic pancreatic inflammation and lymphocytes neural invasion, but not with lymph node metastasis. Conclusions Neural invasion was characteristic biological behavior in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.