Abstract
We report a case of paraganglioma (PG) that originated from the tissue around the pancreatic head, and was misdiagnosed as a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (pNET) before surgery. A 64-year-old woman was found to have a mass in her abdomen by ultrasound in medical examination. Her blood sample did not indicate any rise in pancreatic hormones or tumor markers. The mass in the pancreatic head was heterogeneously enhanced on CT imaging. MRI showed low and high intensity in T1- and T2-weighted images, respectively. We diagnosed the mass as a pNET, and performed an operation. As we found a pedunculated mass that had grown from the tissue around the pancreatic head, we removed the mass by partial excision of the pancreas. The excised mass was positive for synaptophysin, chromogranin A, CD56 and S-100 by immunohistochemical staining. We diagnosed the tumor as PG that derived from the tissue surrounding the pancreatic head.
