OBJECTIVETo raise the awareness of adenosquamous carcinoma of pancreas and discuss the treatment of it.

METHODSClinical data of 80 cases of pancreas adenosquamous carcinoma patients in the Department of Pancreas Surgery of Changhai Hospital of Second Military Medical University from December 2003 to October 2011 were analyzed. The diagnose and treatment methods were discussed. There were 61 male cases and 19 female cases who aged from 28 to 81 years, with an average age of 60 years. The primary symptoms included 46 cases (57.5%) of abdominal malaise, 6 cases (7.5%) of low back pain, 4 cases (5.0%) of abdominal swelling pain with low back pain, 15 cases (18.8%) of abdominal swelling pain with jaundice, 5 cases (6.3%) of painless jaundice, 3 cases (3.8%) of significantly decreased body-weight and 1 case (1.3%) of no symptom. All the patients had been identified as pancreas tumor suffers by ultrasound, enhanced CT scan or MRI. Totally there were 43 cases of head/unciform process tumors, 15 cases of pancreas body tumors and 22 pancreas tail cases.Health situation of all cases were follow-up observed in the outpatient department or telephoned every 3 months till 24 months after the surgery.

RESULTSAmong the 80 patients, 19 patients underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) , 19 patients received pylorus-preserving PD, with 4 cases of palliative resection and 1 case of total pancreatectomy. The volume of bleeding during the surgery varied from 50 to 3 500 ml with a blood transfusion volume varied from 0 to 4 000 ml. Consumed time for PD procedures was 90 to 260 min with 60 to 150 min for body and (or) tail resection with or without lienectomy. The mean diameter of tumor was (4.9 ± 2.2) cm. Pathological tests showed 35 cases of positive lymph nodes, adjacent organ invasion happened in 35 patients, however, nerve invasion were found in 68 cases.Eighteen cases occurred postoperative complications, including bleeding, pancreatic fistula, gastric emptying, incision fat liquefaction and infection, pleural effusion, ascites and nervous diarrhea. There were only 48 effective follow-up patients, with a loss ratio of follow-up by 40.0%, reasons for the loss includes change of contact information, refuse or unable to provide useful information by the relatives of the patients.Sixteen patients received chemotherapy, and 8 patients received radiotherapy after operation. All patients were dead in the effective follow-ups. The postoperative median survival time was 6 months (0.1 to 23.0 months).

CONCLUSIONSAdenosquamous carcinoma of pancreas is a rare kind of malignant tumor, nerve invasion can be found in almost all the cases. Patients with adenosquamous carcinoma of pancreas have an unfavorable prognosis. The principle treatments are surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.