Surveillance and management for serous cystic neoplasms of the pancreas based on total hazards—a multi-center retrospective study from China

Abstract

Background: Serous cystic neoplasms (SCN) rarely have malignant potential, so accurate diagnosis of SCN is crucial for proper clinical management, especially to avoid unnecessary surgeries. However, the misdiagnosis of other pancreatic cystic neoplasm instead of SCN may highly increase the risk of malignancy in patients who receive no surgery.Methods: Data from a total of 678 patients with pathologically confirmed to have SCN at sixteen institutions in China from January 1 st , 2006 to December 31 st , 2016 were retrieved to evaluate the malignancy risk of SCN.Results: Among the 678 patients confirmed to have SCN with postoperative pathologic analysis, 649 patients (95.7%) had only one lesion and the average maximum diameter was 3.8±2.47 cm. Four patients were pathologically verified as having serous cystadenocarcinoma, so the SCN actual malignancy rate was 0.6%, while the mortality due to pancreatic surgery in these high-volume centers was nearly 0.2-2%. However, among the 99 SCN patients based on preoperative radiology, three were confirmed to have intraductal papillary mucinous Wu et al. Surveillance and management for SCN of the pancreas

A long-term survivor of metachronous liver metastases of pancreatic serous cystic neoplasm associated with von Hippel–Lindau disease

“…Since then several cases of malignant SCN have been reported. The actual proportion of malignancy in pancreatic SCNs has been reported to be only 0.6% [ 3 ].…”