Pancreatic cancer presenting with paraneoplastic thrombophlebitis--case report

The complex of symptoms in pancreatic cancer is vague, which often delays presentation and diagnosis. Thrombophlebitis is an unusual presentation of pancreatic cancer, which appears more frequent in the cancer of the body and tail of the pancreas.

We present a case of a 52-years-old woman who was admitted to the hospital for a superficial thrombophlebitis. At the abdomen ultrasound screening, multiple liver masses, relatively well defined, with a hypo-echoic center and a hyper-echoic periphery, were identified. The head of the pancreas was normal, the body and the tail could not be seen very well due to flatulence. After computed tomography, the diagnosis was "Pancreatic tumor with multiple hepatic metastases (stage IV)". After the histopathological examination, 1250 mg/m2 of Gemcitabine was started on day 1 and 8 every 28 days, plus 100 mg/day of Erlotinib (Tarceva), every day. At the end of the seventh month of treatment, the patient suffered an irreversible ischemic cardiac event.

Superficial thrombophlebitis can be the initial manifestation of the pancreatic cancer. Gemcitabine and erlotinib is now a FDA approved regimen for patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. While the search for the best gemcitabine based backbone for advanced pancreatic cancer continues, studies of anti-angiogenic agents alone or in combination with traditional chemotherapy, should be undertaken, as they may improve overall survival in this group of poor prognosis patients.