Complete remission of pancreatic cancer after multiple resections of locally pancreatic recurrent sites and liver metastasis: Report of a case

Pancreatic cancer has the most dismal prognosis of all gastrointestinal cancers. We herein report a case of complete remission from pancreatic cancer by multire-sections of locally pancreatic recurrent sites and liver metastasis over a 14-year period. A 60-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of a neoplasm of the tail of the pancreas in April 1992. A distal pancreatectomy was curatively performed on this patient. At 1 year after surgery a solitary liver metastasis appeared, and we thus performed a partial hepatectomy. Thereafter, local recurrences appeared twice and we performed a pancreatectomy each time. Finally, we performed a total pancreatectomy. The histopathological findings of specimens of the pancreas showed papillary adenocarcinoma, although the original pancreatic tumor also demonstrated areas of tubular adenocarcinoma. Metastatic liver tumor showed tubular adenocarcinoma. The patient has survived for 14 years since the first operation. This is a rare case of a long survival of a patient with pancreatic cancer due to its histopathology and biologic characteristics.