Pancreatic schwannoma: Report of a case

We present herein a case of solitary schwannoma of the pancreas and also re view 26 previously reported cases from the English and Japanese literature. Primary schwannoma of the pancreas is a rare tumor. A 50-year-old female w as discovered to have a large mass in the upper abdomen on ultrasonography. An examination by computed tomography (CT) scan, magnetic resonance imagin g (MRI), and ultrasonography revealed a solid and cystic tumor in the left upper quadrant of the abdomen. A distal pancreatectomy,vith a splenectomy w as performed to remove this tumor. A microscopic examination identified the tumor to be situated in the pancreas while it was composed of cells that o riginated from Schwann cells. Only 26 cases of pancreatic schwannoma have p reviously been reported in the English and Japanese literature, We describe in detail the characteristic findings based on image analyses, including C T scan, MRI, ultrasonography, and angiography, in these 26 cases.