Abstract

Pathologists and others have been calling the serous cystadenoma of the pancreas "microcystic cystadenoma", following Compagno and Oertel's proposal in l978 because it usually consists of innumerable small cysts (less than 2cm). However, unilocular or predominantly macrocystic types of serous cystadenoma have been occasionally reported. Therefore, they present a difficulty in precise preoperative and intraoperative diagnosis for their simi1ar gross appearance to other cystic lesions of the pancreas. We discovered two cases of macrocystic and unilocular serous cystadenomas of the pancreas which were lined by cuboidal to flattened epithelial cells. They contained PAS positive and D-PAS negative intracytoplasmic glycogen granules. The unilocular, macrocystic and microcystic patterns may represent a morphologic spectrum of a pancreatic neoplasm. So we propose to use the term "serous cystadenoma" rather than microcystic cystadenoma.

• Keywords: Pancreas;Microcystic cystadenoma;serous cystadenoma