Follow-up of patients with pseudotumoral chronic pancreatitis: outcome and surveillance

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Aim: to follow up patients with pseudotumoral chronic pancreatitis (PCP) to assess their outcome and identify an optimal surveillance interval.
 Methods: data obtained prospectively were analyzed in a retrospective manner. Patients with clinical evidence of chronic pancreatitis (abdominal pain in the epigastrium, steatorrhea, and diabetes mellitus), endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) criteria > 4, and EUS-fine needle aspiration (FNA) were included. A pseudotumor was defined as a non-neoplastic space-occupying lesion, a cause of chronic pancreatitis that may mimic changes typical of pancreatic cancer on CT or endoscopic ultrasound but without histological evidence. A real tumor was defined as a neoplastic space-occupying lesion because of pancreatic cancer confirmed by histology.
 Results: thirty-five patients with chronic pancreatitis were included, 26 (74.2%) of whom were men. Nine (25.7%) patients were diagnosed with PCP and two (2/35; 5.7%) patients with PCP were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on follow-up. The time between the diagnosis of PCP and pancreatic adenocarcinoma was 35 and 30 days in the two patients. Definitive diagnosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma was made by surgery. In the remaining six patients with PCP, the median of follow-up was 11 months (range 1–22 months) and they showed no evidence of malignancy on surveillance. In the follow-up of patients without PCP but with chronic pancreatitis, none were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. According to our data, older patients with chronic pancreatitis are at risk of PCP.
 Conclusion: according to characteristics of patient, detection of PCP should lead a surveillance program for pancreatic cancer with EUS-FNA in < 1 month or directly to surgical resection.
 Core tip: actually, there are no clear recommendations for follow-up of patients with chronic pancreatitis and solid pancreatic mass lesions. We followed-up patients with chronic pancreatitis and solid pancreatic mass lesions and we assessed the final outcome and identified an optimal surveillance interval. We found that almost one-third of patients with chronic pancreatitis had PCP, and 22.2% had unresectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma less than 2 mo after the initial diagnosis. Endoscopic ultrasound fine needle aspiration can miss malignancy in nearly 25% of patients with PCP.