A case of nonfunctioning pancreatic endocrine tumor with atypical imaging findings due to prominent fibrosis of the tumor stroma

J Nippon Med Sch. 2014;81(5):346-52. doi: 10.1272/jnms.81.346.

Abstract

The patient, a 56-year-old woman, was found during routine checkup to have a disorder of hepatic function. Abdominal ultrasonography showed an ill-defined hypoechoic mass in the head and body of the pancreas; however, no blood-flow signal was observed within the tumor on Doppler ultrasonography. Abdominal computed tomography showed a low-density area in the arterial and portal venous phases. The lesion was visualized as an area of low signal intensity on both T1- and T2-weighted magnetic resonance images, whereas fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography showed fluorodeoxyglucose accumulation in the tumor. Although a preoperative diagnosis was difficult to make, a rapid cytologic examination revealed evidence of a pancreatic endocrine tumor, and subtotal stomach-preserving pancreaticoduodenectomy with portal vein resection was performed. Histopathological examination showed tumor cell nests scattered in abundant fibrotic tissue; the tumor cells had proliferated in a cord-like fashion and showed immunostaining for chromogranin A. Staining for fibroblast activation protein α was seen in the fibroblastic cells contained within the fibrous stroma surrounding the tumor cell nests, whereas both the fibroblastic cells in the tumor and those in the stroma showed a high rate of staining for thrombospondin. We presume that tumor-associated fibroblasts were involved in the fibrosis of the tumor stroma.

Publication types

  • Case Reports

MeSH terms

  • Cytodiagnosis
  • Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging*
  • Female
  • Fibrosis
  • Humans
  • Immunohistochemistry
  • Middle Aged
  • Pancreatic Neoplasms / diagnosis*
  • Pancreatic Neoplasms / pathology*
  • Positron-Emission Tomography
  • Tomography, X-Ray Computed
  • Ultrasonography, Doppler

Supplementary concepts

  • Non functioning pancreatic endocrine tumor