Pancreatic carcinoid: transcatheter arterial chemoembolization of liver metastases

Carcinoid tumors are a common disease in the gastrointestinal tract, but are extremely rare in pancreas. To our knowledge, only 33 carcinoid tumors of pancreas have been reported in the English literature. Complete surgical resection of pancreatic carcinoid contributes to prolonged survival. But distant metastases, including liver metastasis, prevent long-term survival. We report here one resected case of pancreatic carcinoid tumor with liver metastases. Postoperatively, multiple liver metastases had arisen in the bilateral lobe of the liver and were treated with transcatheter arterial chemoembolization. In this case, transcatheter chemoembolization was effective for palliation for postoperative liver metastases.