Mucinous Cystic Neoplasm : Treatment
Comments:
Mucinous Cystic Neoplasm (MCN) of Pancreas - Treatment & Prognosis: MCN is usually treated by distal pancreatectomy with lymph node dissection. If no invasive component is detected, the patients do not need any additional follow-up. The 5-yr survival rate is 100%. In case of small tumors (<4 cm) without mural nodules, discovered incidentally on imaging studies, the probability of malignancy is very low. Such cases can be managed by parenchyma-sparing procedures such as enucleation or middle pancreatectomy without lymph node dissection.. Minimally invasive carcinoma, consisting of small foci invading the sub-epithelial ovarian stroma but not the pancreatic parenchyma, also have excellent prognosis. If there is invasion of pancreas or extrapancreatic sites, the prognosis worsens significantly with an actuarial 5-yr survival rate dropping to 50-60%. The size of invasive component, nodal status, distant metastasis, and surgical margins influence the prognosis. The image shows classic histologic features of a MCN of pancreas, consisting of mucinous epithelium with underlying ovarian-type stroma.