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Abstract

Rationale:Pancreatic mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC) is a rare disease with no more than 10 cases reported in literature. The prognosis is poor and few patients can survival more than 1 year.Patient concerns:We presented a case of patient manifested as left upper abdominal pain. Computed tomography demonstrated a low-density shadow measuring 2.1 × 2.4 cm situated at the transition area of neck and body of the pancreas with obscure boundary and irregular enhancement. The preoperative symptoms and imaging features were unspecific.Diagnoses:Pancreatic MEC.Interventions:Curative surgery of distal pancreatectomy was conducted. Postoperatively, the patient subsequently underwent 8 cycles of chemotherapy using cisplatin (25 mg/m2) on day 1 to day 3; and gemcitabine (1000 mg/m2) on day 1 and day 8, repeated every 21 days.Outcomes:The patient was monitored on a regular basis at our outpatient department and survived 23 months after surgery.Lessons:Preoperative diagnosis of pancreatic MEC is difficult. Patients with pancreatic MEC may have a survival benefit from the multimodal treatment of curative surgery combined with chemotherapy.

Rapidly Progressing Anaplastic Carcinoma of the Pancreas with Mucoepidermoid Carcinoma: An Autopsy Case Report

“…Both anaplastic carcinoma and mucoepidermoid carcinoma are very rare histologic subtypes of pancreatic carcinoma, and their prognoses are poorer than that of common PDAC ( 1 , 3 ). The reported median survival time from the diagnosis of anaplastic carcinoma of the pancreas ranges from 3.3 months ( 9 ) to 12.8 months ( 10 ), which is significantly shorter than that of common PDAC.…”

“…This made it difficult to distinguish anaplastic carcinoma from other types of pancreatic carcinoma. CT is also limited in its ability to distinguish mucoepidermoid carcinoma from other types of pancreatic carcinoma, because of its low specificity ( 3 ). EUS findings of anaplastic carcinoma of the pancreas show a hypoechoic and heterogeneous pattern ( 19 ), and the findings of mucoepidermoid carcinoma are hypoechoic pattern with slightly high internal echoes ( 11 ).…”

“…It is most commonly seen in salivary glands and has a good prognosis. Mucoepidermoid carcinoma is also an uncommon histologic subtype of pancreatic carcinoma and is an extremely rare entity ( 3 - 7 ). Therefore, the malignant potential of mucoepidermoid carcinoma in the pancreas is unknown.…”

Targeted-Gene Sequencing and Bioinformatics Analysis of Patients with Pancreatic Mucoepidermoid Carcinoma: A Case Report and Literature Review

“…English papers published from 1959 to 2020 were searched using the PubMed database with the search terms "mucoepidermoid carcinoma", "MEC", "pancreas" and "pancreatic", and only eleven cases were found. 4,5,[15][16][17][18][19] Clinicopathologic characteristics of these patients, including age, sex, treatment and prognosis, were collected for a better understanding of pancreatic MEC (Table 2). To date, the gene mutation sites in pancreatic MEC are unknown.…”

“…Previous cases of pancreatic MEC prove that chemotherapy is not very effective, and curative surgery with adjuvant chemotherapy is more effective when the mass is resectable. 5 Besides, because of frequent upper abdominal distension, the patient preferred curative surgery. Subsequently, the patient underwent distal pancreatectomy accompanied by radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of two liver metastatic lesions.…”