Clinical History
72 year old female with jaundice and a pancreatic mass.
Cytology
Resident Questions
- Adenocarcinoma
- Most common malignant tumor of the pancreas
- Accounts for approximately 85% of all pancreatic tumors
- Patients are commonly women in the 6th and 7th decades of life
- Prognosis is poor 90% of patients die within a year of diagnosis
- Association with cigarette smoking, high fat diet, and diabetes mellitus
- Triad of weight loss, pain, and jaundice
- Usually involve the head of the pancreas
- Can obstruct the biliary or pancreatic ducts which can cause a double duct sign on imaging and can also cause painless jaundice
- Cellular specimen
- Predominantly ductal type cells and sparse/absent acinar cells
- Pleomorphism
- Nuclear crowding and overlapping
- Nuclear enlargement (more than 2-3 times the size of red blood cells)
- Nuclear membrane irregularity
- Three dimensional configuration
- Drunken honeycomb
