[Clinicopathologic characteristics of the pancreatic cystic tumors]

Formerly an infrequent pathology, pancreatic cystic tumors stand nowadays for 25% of all pancreatic surgical diseases.

Evaluate the frequency of the presentation of each type and the behavior of the pancreatic cystic tumors that went to surgery in our unit.

In our Pancreas Unit, 708 patients with pancreatic tumors underwent surgery in the period between October 2002 and December 2013. 146 cases of pancreatic cystic tumors taken from that group are the topic of the present study.

Even when diagnosing pancreatic tumors as cystic tumors was possible in 91% of cases during pre-op evaluation, categorizing the type of cystic tumor was only possible in 73% of cases. In 128 cases (88%), cystic tumors were removable. Due to advanced disease, in 3 cases only diversion surgery was possible and, in 15 cases, exploration and biopsy was the only choice. When the frequency of malignancy was assessed for all four types of pancreatic cystic tumors, the one most frequently becoming malignant was mucinous papillary intraductal (53%), followed by mucinous cystic (50%). Solid pseudopapillary pancreatic cystic tumors became malignant in 29% of cases and for serous cystoadenoma the frequency of malignancy was nihil.

Cystic tumors are the most frequent type of pancreatic lesion. It's of paramount importance to categotize them since risk of malignancy can be as high as 52% in case of mucinous intraductal papillary type.