The Significance of Nesidiodysplasia of the Pancreas

ABSTRACT

To elucidate the significance of the nesidiodysplasia of pancreas, histological re-evaluation and immunohistochemical studies for insulin, glucagon and somatostatin were done on 16 consecutive cases (5 premature babies, 2 stillborns, 5 infants and 3 adults) in which paraffin blocks of the pancreas were available. Only one infant was hypoglycemic. All 16 pancreases showed changes of nesidiodysplasia which appeared immunohistochemically to have isulin, glucagon and /or somatostatin. The histologic patterns of nesidiodysplasia included ductoendocrine proliferation, endocrine cell dysplasia, adenomatosis, septal islet, islket cell hypertrophy and islet hypertrophy. All the patterns of nesidiodysplasia except for the adenomatosis were seen in premature babies, infants, stillborns and adults with or without hypoglycemia. The adenomatosis was found only in the hypoglycemic infant. The result suggests that all patterns of nesidiodysplasia of other than the adenomatosis does not imply the pathologic basis of hypoglycemia.