Clinical significance of heterotopic pancreas in wall of stomach; report of a case and review of the literature.

Abstract

NO MATTER how rare a medical entity may be, if it has the potentiality of producing any serious consequence, it certainly is worthy of consideration. Since Klob 1 first called attention to the aberrant pancreas, in 1859, there have been 548 cases of heterotopic pancreatic tissue reported in the literature. There are numerous contributions as to the origin of this tissue. The one most widely accepted is that of Moore 2 who suggests that different cases present different factors of possible origin: (1) that the heterotopic tissue develops from the primary anlage; (2) that inflammatory or embryonal adhesions cause subsequent detachments of a mass of pancreatic cells, and (3) that the cells of the secondary snared-off anlage of Warthin are still undifferentiated entoderm and are capable of differentiating into pancreatic acini, islands of Langerhans, ductal epithelium, and glands of Brunner. Heterotopic pancreatic tissue has been noted in the stomach, gall