title: Epidermoid cyst arising from an intrapancreatic accessory spleen: a case report and a review of the literature.
abstract: Accessory spleen is estimated to occur in 1 in 10 people in the general population, usually in the tail of the pancreas. Epidermoid cysts arising from ectopic spleen tissue in the tail of the pancreas are a benign and extremely rare pathology. Only 27 cases with such pathology have been reported in the English literature. Differentiating this pathology from other pancreatic pathologies, especially in the presence of a history of recent cancer, is almost impossible. In this article, we report a 36-year-old African-American woman with a history of colon cancer and hemicolectomy who was incidentally found to have a cystic lesion in the tail of her pancreas during surveillance abdominal imaging. After a distal pancreatectomy, the lesion was diagnosed to be an epidermoid cyst in an intrapancreatic accessory spleen. This is the first report of such pathology in a patient with a recent history of cancer. We propose that this pathology be considered as a differential diagnosis when assessing patients with cystic lesions in their pancreas, even when they have a history of previous malignancies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, USA.
authors.forename: Alireza
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hamidian Jahromi
authors.forename: Mohammad Kazem
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Fallahzadeh
authors.forename: Nestor
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Dela Cruz
authors.forename: Quyen
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chu
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000601:surgery; D000328:Adult; D002828:Choristoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D003110:Colonic Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery; D004814:Epidermal Cyst / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010182:Pancreatic Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery; D013154:Spleen / Q000601:surgery