title: Unusual Masses of the Pancreas to Be Aware of.
abstract: This paper aims at emphasizing the difficulty in assessing preoperatively the diagnosis of solid masses of the pancreas whatever the initial clinical presentation may be. We illustrate our purpose describing consecutive cases of pancreatic masses of the pancreas we recently had and who were followed according to the internal guidelines of investigation of our referral hospital. Whereas malignant tumors of the pancreas represent the vast majority of solid tumors of the pancreas, other diagnoses must be evoked. We report three cases of pancreatic solid masses that were explored by endoscopic ultrasonography coupled with fine needle aspiration, a method universally considered to be both reliable and accurate but which failed to assess definitive diagnosis due to both cytological pitfalls and sampling error.
authors.affiliation: Division of Clinical Pathology, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Muriel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Genevay
authors.forename: Jean Marc
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Dumonceau
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Berney
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Terraz
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Felley
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Morel
authors.forename: Jean Louis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Frossard