A small, incidentally detected pancreatic somatostatinoma: report of a case.
We report an asymptomatic 72-year-old woman with a small, incidentally detected, pancreatic somatostatinoma. The tumor, measuring 1 cm in diameter, showed a hypervascular pattern of contrast enhancement on computed tomography, and was found angiographically to receive a blood supply from the posterior superior pancreaticoduodenal artery. The results of preoperative hormonal assays all were normal. No assay for somatostatin was performed. No abnormality in either the pituitary or parathyroid was found. We thus considered the tumor to be a sporadic, nonfunctioning endocrine cell tumor, and enucleation was carried out. As some tumor cells in the resected specimen showed immunoreactivity for somatostatin, a diagnosis of somatostatinoma was made. Therefore, the possibility of somatostatinoma should be kept in mind when making a differential diagnosis of pancreatic endocrine tumors in cases where even a small hypervascular tumor is detected on enhanced computed tomography.
Tomono
Hitoshi
H
Department of Surgery,Iwata City General Hospital, 512-3 Okubo, Iwata, Shizuoka 438-8550, Japan.
Kitamura
Hiroshi
H
Iwase
Masanori
M
Kuze
Shingo
S
Toyoda
Futoru
F
Mori
Naoharu
N
Tamoto
Eiji
E
Inuzuka
Kazunori
K
Fujita
Hiromine
H
Konishi
Yukiko
Y
Naito
Masaaki
M
Tanioka
Fumihiko
F
D000368:Aged; D000792:Angiography; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000098:blood supply / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D013005:Somatostatinoma / Q000098:blood supply / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery