Features Of Pancreatic Cancer Research Articles

Ultrastructural study of the mechanism of perineural extension in pancreatic cancer

Nerve invasion is one of the biological features of pancreatic cancer, and its mechanism remains to be determined. In this paper, we report on 37 pancreatic cancer specimens observed by immunohistochemical and electron microscopical techniques. The results showed that pancreatic cancer directly invaded and destroyed the perineurium. At the early stage of disease, the peripheral nerve and synaptic membrane were easily destroyed by cancer cells, and invasion and metastasis continuously advanced along the perineural space and central side of nerves. These results suggest that the soft tissue and nerve plexus on the dorsal region of the pancreas may contribute to the recurrence of pancreatic cancer after duodenopancreatectomy.

Patterns of neural and plexus invasion of human pancreatic cancer and experimental cancer

Specimens from four patients who underwent resection of cancer of the pancreatic head were examined histologically by serial sections to study the patterns of extrapancreatic nerve plexus invasion of cancer. To understand the mode of neural invasion and its specificity for pancreatic cancer, we also examined retropancreatically transplanted virus-induced rabbit papilloma (VX2) cells in six rabbits. Histological evaluation of the specimens from patients revealed neural invasion near the primary lesion, where cancer cells broke the perineurium and showed communication of cancer cells between the inside and outside of the perineurium. Tumor cells found distant from the primary cancer were confined to the perineurium, grew in a continuous pattern, and followed the branches of nerves. When the rabbit's VX2 cells were implanted into the retropancreatic region of recipient rabbits we also observed neural invasion. This study shows that neural invasion is a common, but not a specific, feature of pancreatic cancer, and it suggests that en bloc excision of the retropancreatic tissue, including fat tissue and the extrapancreatic nerve plexus, should be the basic procedure of radical surgery in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.