PAPILLARY CYSTIC TUMOR OF THE PANCREAS - HISTOLOGICAL, IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL AND FLOW CYTOMETRIC STUDY

The authors ape reporting a case of papillary and cystic neoplasm of t he pancreas. This rare malignant epithelial neoplasm occurs mostly in young women and has a more favorable prognosis than the adenocarcinoma . Radiologic investigations showed a well demarcated, heterogeneous, h ypovascular mass. The histological study showed the proliferation of e pithelial cells in a papillary pattern. The immunochemistry was negati ve for markets of adenocarcinoma but positive for vimentin, alpha-1-an titrypsin, alpha-1-antichymotrypsin and neuron specific enolase. Recep tors of progesterone were also detected. By flow cytometric analysis, the tumours was hypoploid. The histogenesis of these tumours remained controversed. Ultrastructural details of the neoplastic cells suggest that these tumours originate from small duct cells; detection in sever al cases of markers for endocrine neoplasm suggests that they originat e from primitive multipotential cells, that may show exocrine or endoc rine differentiation.