[Cystic pancreas adenoma. On the clinical relevance of histologic typing]

Although pancreatic cystadenomas are rare neoplasms, they are found today in rising frequencies due to improvement of diagnostic tools. There exist two types of cystadenoma: microcystic serous cystadenoma and mucinous cystadenoma. Usually, histological distinction from cystadenocarcinoma is readily made, but it may be difficult in the case of the mucinous variant. This subtype is supposed to be potentially malignant, whereas microcystic serous cystadenoma is always benign. In order to elucidate the characteristics of both variants, 5 own cases are reported in this article.