What does Pancreatic Carcinoma actually look like?!
Question: What does Pancreatic Carcinoma actually look like?
I also need a description of it's cell basis.
Help? it's urgent.
Answers:
Autoimmune pancreatitis is a new clinical entity that is characterized by peculiar histopathologic and laboratory findings and by a dramatic clinical response to corticosteroid therapy.
It has been designated variably as lymphoplasmacytic sclerosing pancreatitis, duct-destructive (duct-centric) pancreatitis or autoimmune pancreatitis.
This clinically and pathologically distinct form of chronic pancreatitis is now widely recognized and is considered an autoimmune process.
In about 15% to 20% of patients, autoimmune conditions are present at the time of diagnosis, and in many others, discovered subsequently. The usual "lymphoplasmacytic sclerotic" type tends to be associated with Sjogren, whereas the "granulocytic" subset, with inflammatory bowel disease.
Most patients present with a pancreatic head mass, often with an accompanying stricture of the distal common bile duct, which thus radiologically resembles "pancreas cancer."
This entity accounts for more than a third of the cases of pseudotumoral pancreatitis (mass-forming inflammatory lesions that resemble carcinoma).
The mean age of the patients with this condition is in the mid-50s. The subset with granulocytic intraepithelial lesions seem to be younger (mid 40s).
Despite the autoimmune association, males are affected as commonly as females.