Hypovascular pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor with hepatic metastases: A case report and literature review

Abstract

Hypovascular pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors are uncommon pancreatic tumors and commonly misdiagnosed as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma or chronic mass-forming pancreatitis. The liver is the organ most commonly affected by neuroendocrine tumor metastases but hepatic neuroendocrine tumor metastases are quite difficult to discriminate from other hepatic metastases and primary hepatic tumors. We describe a case of a 47-year-old man with incidentally detected multiple hepatic lesions on ultrasound. On further imaging technique including computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, the patient had an abnormal hypoenhancing lesion at the pancreatic tail and multiple hyperenhancing hepatic metastases that were diagnosed as hypovascular pancreatic well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumor Grade 2 with multiple hypervascular hepatic metastases after liver biopsy and surgery. Neuroendocrine tumor is a rare etiology among hypoenhancing pancreatic tumors, and must be considered to discriminate from pancreatic adenocarcinomas in cases there are multiple hyperenhancing hepatic metastases on the arterial phase without typical washout on the portal venous phase.

Keywords

• Carcinoid tumor
• Hypoenhancing pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors
• Hypovascular pancreatic carcinoid tumor
• Hepatic neuroendocrine tumors