Fine-needle aspiration cytology of pancreatoblastoma in a young woman: Report of a case and review of the literature

✍ Scribed by Lee-Ching Zhu; Gurdip S. Sidhu; Nicholas D. Cassai; Grace C.H. Yang

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 278 KB
• Volume: 33
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 8755-1039
• DOI: 10.1002/dc.20355

✦ Synopsis

Pancreatoblastoma is a rare tumor and has been reported only four times in the cytologic literature, three times in fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy and once in an imprint of resected tumor. We are reporting the fourth case of FNA cytology with immunohistochemical and electron microscopic studies. The patient is a 24-yr-old African American woman, who presented with a pancreatic mass, hepatic masses, and abdominal lymphadenopathy. The aspiration smears of the liver mass showed a biphasic tumor composed of bland-appearing primitive spindled stromal fragments with ''spider-web''-like long fibrils interconnecting with sharply angulated islands of cohesive epithelium. At high power, the epithelium is composed of medium-sized cells with round-to-oval vesicular nuclei with fine chromatin and oneto-two small nucleoli. The neuroendocrine component was demonstrated immunohistochemically with synaptophysin and chromogranin expressions. The acinar component and squamoid component were demonstrated ultrastructurally by the presence of 400-600 nm zymogen granules and tonofilaments. The literature was reviewed and the cytological features of all the four cases of pancreatoblastoma are summarized.