Mucinous cystadenocarcinoma of the pancreas - outcome following different modes of treatment.

Background: Mucinous cystadenocarcinomas (MCAC) of the pancreas are rare tumors. When localized to the pancreas alone, surgical resection is mostly associated with a favorable prognosis. The potential value of palliative treatment with chemotherapy for irresectable disease is scarcely described though.

Retroperitoneal bronchogenic cyst as a differential diagnosis of pancreatic mucinous cystic tumor.

Cystic tumors of the pancreas where a pseudocyst has not been able to be excluded has been considered potentially proliferative and pre-malignant or malignant and thus aggressive surgical approach has been advocated. Retroperitoneal cystic tumors are rare and among these bronchogenic cysts are extremely infrequent. The present paper describes a case of bronchogenic cyst in association with the pancreas in which diagnostic work-up was not able to exclude a proliferative pancreatic cystic tumor.

[Guidelines for management of patients with pancreatic cancer].

The incidence of pancreatic cancer has fallen during the last ten years in Sweden. Early signs and symptoms of the disease are still undiscovered and when diagnosis is made the disease is incurable in most patients. Transabdominal ultrasonography is the first-line imaging test followed by spiral computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) if required for definite diagnosis.

Transhepatic intravascular ultrasound for evaluation of portal venous involvement in patients with cancer of the pancreatic head region.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability of intravascular ultrasound to diagnose tumor involvement of the portal and the superior mesenteric veins using the preoperative percutaneous, transhepatic approach, and to compare the findings with those made at concomitant direct portography, surgery, and histopathological examination. Ten patients with a preoperative diagnosis of a resectable tumor in the pancreatic head region were examined with percutaneous transhepatic portography (PTP) and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). The surgeon's intraoperative evaluation and the histopathological examination in combination revealed tumor involvement of the portal or superior mesenteric veins in six of the ten patients.

Extensive cytogenetic heterogeneity in a benign retroperitoneal schwannoma.

A benign retroperitoneal schwannoma from a patient without prior exposure to radiotherapy or chemotherapy was analyzed by chromosome banding after short-term culture. An extensive intratumor heterogeneity in the form of 29 karyotypically related as well as unrelated clones was found. The aberrant clones were diploid or near-diploid and displayed both numerical and structural changes.