Clinical Analysis for Mucinous Cystic Neoplasms of the Pancreas

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Mucinous cystic neoplasms are at best potentially malignant and present a spectrum of neoplasia ranging from benign neoplasms to invasive carcinoma. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinicopathologic characteristics relevant to the specific diagnosis of mucinous cystic neoplasms of the pancreas. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewe the clinical features and histopathologic findings of 34 cases who underwent op-erations with mucinous cystic neoplasms of the pancreas from October 1994 to March 2005. RESULTS: There were 25 mucinous cystadenoma (73.5%), 6 mucinous cystic tumor of borderline malignant potential (17.6%), 1 in situ mucinous cystadenocarcinoma (2.9%), 2 invasive mucinous cystadenocarcinoma (5.9%). Their ages ranged from 23 to 76 years with a mean of 44.2. The 88.2% of the patients were women. The 94.1 % of the tumors were located in the body or tail of the pancreas. The tumor size ranged from 2 to 17 cm, especially the mean size of invasive mucinous cystadenocarcinoma was 13.5 cm. The accuracy of CT for diagnosing was 81.8% and that of US was 53.3%. After a follow-up duration from 5 to 103 months, all patients are still alive. However, recurrent disease developed in all of the 2 patients with invasion. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that complete surgical resection is certainly the gold standard treatment for mucinous cystic neoplasms. A histologic diagnosis of invasive cysta-denocarcinoma portends a dismal prognosis, so close long term follow up is necessary due to tumor recurrence.