Department of Internal Medicine, Hangang Sacred Heart Hospital, Hallym University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
ABSTRACT
Pancreatic serotonin-producing neuroendocrine tumors(NETs) are exceedingly rare tumors that originate from the enterochromaffin cells of the pancreatic neuroendocrine system. Although pancreatic serotonin-producing NETs grow slowly and show an indolent clinical behavior, they are potentially malignant. Due to the late onset of clinical symptoms and delayed diagnosis of the tumor, there was a high incidence of distant metastases and an unfavorable overall prognosis. The diagnosis of pancreatic serotonin-producing NETs should be based on the measurement of serotonin in serum or its demonstration in the tumor and/or by the measurement of 5-Hydroxyindoleacetic acid(5-HIAA) in urine. We experienced a rare case of pancreatic serotonin-producing NET mimicked pancreas cancer with multiple distant metastasis and report here with literature review.