A Resectable Case of Solitary Pancreatic Metastasis from Rectal Cancer

A 62-year-old woman underwent lower anterior resection for rectal cancer in January 2000. Her serum CEA rose in November 2000, but image diagnosis showed no metastatic lesion. Computed tomography showed a tumor of the body of the pancreas in August 2001, so we conducted distal pancreatectomy with splenectomy. The tumor was 7×4cm and pathological findings showed moderately differentiated carcinoma and metastasis from rectal cancer. She underwent postoperative chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil and iso-vorin, and in July 2003 she remained alive and recurrence-free. Pancreatic metastasis from colorectal cancer is very rare and, only 14 cases of resectable pancreatic metastasis, including ours, have been reported in the Japanese literature. If pancreatic metastasis is solitary and no other metastasis occurs, surgical resection is recommended.