KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The study aimed to investigate a large cohort of pts with histologically confirmed epithelial non-ductal non-neuroendocrine neoplasms of the pancreas.
- Researchers observed that rare epithelial pancreatic tumors had a better long-term prognosis post-R0 resection than ductal pancreatic cancer.
A suspicious malignant mass in the pancreas is often misinterpreted to be a pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. With persistent progress in cross-sectional imaging diagnostics and the widespread availability of high-performance equipment corresponding to the same, not only are ductal pancreatic carcinomas being detected more frequently, but other pancreatic abnormalities are also being identified more often.
However, the increased detection of cystic pancreatic lesions does not correlate with a rise in pancreatic malignancies. The biology of rare pancreatic tumors, which are contrastingly different from ductal pancreatic cancer, requires increased attention.
Although major subtypes of rare pancreatic tumors are benign, it is difficult to decide whether an invasive component exists without complete removal of the lesion, irrespective of noticeable development in the diagnostics.
Astrid Bauschke and the team aimed to investigate a large cohort of patients (pts) with histologically confirmed epithelial non-ductal non-neuroendocrine neoplasms of the pancreas.
They analyzed the long-term survival of pts, who underwent resection of histologically confirmed epithelial non-ductal non-neuroendocrine neoplasms of the pancreas between January 1st, 1999, and December 31st, 2019.
The median follow-up was 61 (range 0-168) months. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 26.0 (IBM, Chicago, IL, USA) software.
About 46 pts (48%) were enrolled and followed up for more than 5 years, and 18 pts (19%) for more than 10 years. The 5-year and 10-year survival rates for rare non-invasive pancreatic tumors were 72% and 55%, respectively.
The proportion of rare tumor entities (non-ductal and non-neuroendocrine) increased continuously and statistically significantly (P = 0.004) from 4.2% to 12.3% during the analysis between 1999 and 2019.
If invasive growth was observed, there was a varying risk of malignant degeneration throughout the disease. Therefore, the indication for pancreatic resection remained a topic of discussion.
The study concluded that the long-term prognosis of rare epithelial pancreatic tumors after R0 resection- even if they were already malignant- was much better than that of ductal pancreatic cancer.
Open-access funding was received from Projekt DEAL.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39002034/
Bauschke A, Altendorf-Hofmann A, Ali-Deeb A, et al. (2024). “Rare tumours of the pancreas: monocentric study.” J Cancer Res Clin Oncol. 2024 Jul 13;150(7):349. doi: 10.1007/s00432-024-05884-2. PMID: 39002034; PMCID: PMC11246325.
