title: Pancreatic panniculitis in an 88-year-old man with neuroendocrine carcinoma.
abstract: Pancreatic panniculitis is a rare complication that occurs in 0.3-3% of patients with pancreatic diseases. Most of the cases reported to date were associated with adenocarcinoma and acute or chronic pancreatitis. We here present an 88-year-old man who was admitted to our institution with a nonfunctional neuroendocrine carcinoma of the pancreas. He subsequently developed pancreatic panniculitis and arthritis. Treatment with octreotide did not have an effect neither on progression of the carcinoma nor on development of new skin lesions. Two months after the diagnosis of pancreatic panniculitis had been made, the patient died from progressing carcinoma. A review of the literature shows that there is no congruent hypothesis for the pathogenesis of pancreatic panniculitis. Vascular damage seems to induce lipolysis by pancreatic enzymes. This eventually leads to fat necrosis. The diversity of disorders that can go along with pancreatic panniculitis suggests an unspecific damage of pancreatic tissue as a first step in the chain of events.
authors.affiliation: Medical Department I (Gastroenterology, Infectious Diseases, and Rheumatology), Universitätsklinikum Benjamin Franklin, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. jpreiss@niaid.nih.gov
authors.forename: Jan Christian
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Preiss
authors.forename: Seigbert
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Faiss
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Loddenkemper
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zeitz
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Duchmann
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001168:Arthritis / Q000150:complications; D018278:Carcinoma, Neuroendocrine / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010182:Pancreatic Diseases / Q000209:etiology*; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000150:complications*; D015434:Panniculitis / Q000209:etiology*