Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Aug 14, 2015; 21(30): 9228-9232
Published online Aug 14, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i30.9228
Rare case of adult pancreatic hemangioma and review of the literature
Tao Lu, Cheng Yang
Tao Lu, Cheng Yang, Department of Radiology, Sichuan Academy of Medical Science, Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, Chengdu 610072, Sichuan Province, China
Author contributions: Lu T collected the materials of the case and wrote the article; and Yang C was involved in editing the manuscript and the images.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the institutional review board of Sichuan Academy of Medical Science and Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital.
Informed consent statement: The study participant provided informed written consent prior to the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Tao Lu, MD, Department of Radiology, Sichuan Academy of Medical Science, Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, 32 West Second Section, First Ring Road, Chengdu 610072, Sichuan Province, China. 345248302@qq.com
Telephone: +86-28-87394279 Fax: +86-28-87394279
Received: January 30, 2015
Peer-review started: January 31, 2015
First decision: March 10, 2015
Revised: March 29, 2015
Accepted: May 2, 2015
Article in press: May 4, 2015
Published online: August 14, 2015
Processing time: 198 Days and 20.8 Hours
Abstract

Pancreatic hemangiomas are a rare type of cystic tumor, with very few cases reported in the literature. Herein, we present the case of a 28-year-old woman who was admitted to our hospital for abdominal pain. A physical examination failed to reveal any abnormalities that could explain her symptoms. A contrast-enhanced computed tomography showed a multilocular cyst with moderately enhanced septa and fluid-fluid levels in the body and tail of the pancreas. A serous cystadenoma or pseudocyst of the pancreas was initially suspected, and the patient underwent a subtotal pancreatectomy and splenectomy. The pathologic diagnosis was a pancreatic hemangioma. This is the second case of pancreatic hemangioma with fluid-fluid levels reported in the literature. Upon imaging, the presentation of this tumor can resemble serous or mucinous cystadenomas, pseudocysts of the pancreas, and side-branch type intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms. This report reviews the clinical symptoms, radiologic features, pathologic characteristics, differential diagnoses, and treatment of this rare lesion type.

Keywords: Computed tomography; Hemangioma; Pancreas

Core tip: Pancreatic hemangioma is a rare benign tumor that is even more rare in adults. We report a case of pancreatic hemangioma in a 28-year-old woman. The tumor appeared as a multilocular cyst with septa and fluid-fluid levels in the body and tail of the pancreas. The septa were only moderately enhanced. This is the second reported case of fluid-fluid level in pancreatic hemangioma. Treatment of the pancreatic hemangioma in this case involved resection of the body and tail of the pancreas and concurrent splenectomy.