A nongastrin malignant ampullary tumor causing gastric acid and pepsin hypersecretion. A case report

We report a case of multiple duodenal ulcers with gastric hypersecretion due to a nongastrin secretagogue produced by a malignant tumor of the pancreas in a 78-year-old man. The case resembled a Zollinger-Ellison syndrome (ZES) with high acid output (basal acid output 27, sham meal-stimulated 37, maximum acid output 47 mEq/h), but with fasting gastrin 43 pg/ml, nonresponsive to secretin. As in ZES, pepsin output was comparatively low, and secretion was inhibitable by atropine (50% inhibited by 1 microM). The tumor removed at surgery contained less than 1 ng gastrin per gram, but was many times more potent than pentagastrin in stimulating acid from a lumen-perfused rat stomach. The tumor also contained cholecystokinin (CCK-8 and CCK-33), motilin, insulin, and somatostatin, which were also present in adjacent normal pancreas; in addition, the tumor contained pancreatic polypeptide and pancreatic cancer-associated antigen. This case represents a rare syndrome due to an as yet undefined peptide secreted by a (frequently malignant) pancreatic endocrine tumor and masquerading as ZES. This is the first report of studies of pepsin secretion and of the effect of atropine, suggesting that the physiologic effects of the secretagogue resemble that of gastrin.