OCUP-A2

A man in his 30s with left upper quadrant pain was diagnosed by CT as having a malignant pancreatic neoplasm with liver metastasis. The values of CEA, CA19-9, SPan-1 were 0.7 ng/mL, 394 U/mL and 60 U/mL, respectively. Although the diagnosis was unresectable pancreatic cancer, the patient underwent distal pancreatectomy in order to control the bleeding in his stomach caused by the invading primary tumor. The pathological classification of the cancer was T4NXM1, UICC stage IV. After surgery, the patient was treated with gemcitabine. Although his activities of daily living had improved at the beginning of chemotherapy, he died five months after surgery due to progression of the cancer.

The histological diagnosis in both cases was determined as the pleomorphic type of anaplastic pancreatic cancer because tissue imaging with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining was composed of a large portion of pleomorphic cells and a portion of spindle cells and poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma in the pancreas.