2007 Volume 40 Issue 5 Pages 605-610
A 73-year-old man admitted for obstructive jaundice was found in histological examination of a biopsied specimen of the papilla of Vater to have adenocarcinoma. We conducted pancreaticoduodenectomy with regional lymph node dissection. Histologically, the tumor consisted of solid nests of eosinophilic atypical cells with adenocarcinoma. Immunohistochemically, staining was positive for NSE and chromogranin A. The definitive diagnosis was adenoendocrine cell carcinoma. Although the prognosis of endocrine cell carcinoma is ordinarily dismal, the man has remained disease-free in the 14 months since surgery, presumably thanks to adjuvant chemotherapy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only seventh case ever reported of endocrine cell carcinoma of the ampulla of Vater in Japan.
