Pancreatic heterotopia and other uncommon causes of non-malignant biliary obstruction

The vast majority of patients developing obstructive jaundice will have an underlying malignancy. When the etiology of the obstruction cannot be defin ed prior to operative intervention. identification of a non-malignant proce ss will occur only subsequent to a major operation. The clinical course of a patient with complete distal common bile duct obstruction as the result o f pancreatic heterotopia is discussed. This uncommon diagnosis prompted a r eview of the literature on this subject enabling this detailed discussion i nclusive of the embryology, prevalence and clinical presentations of this e ntity. Our review further identified a varied group of other non-malignant causes of biliary obstruction that may be mistakenly interpreted to represe nt biliary or pancreatic malignancy. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rig hts reserved.