Pancreatic heterotopia in the gall bladder: a case report and literature review

Pancreatic heterotopia in the gall bladder is a rare entity, with approximately 31 cases reported in English language literature until 2006; there are no Brazilian studies on the topic. As it is usually asymptomatic, the definitive diagnosis is made by the anatomopathological material excised due to common diseases of the organ, such as lithiasis, inflammatory processes, polyps and tumors. A case is reported of a 40-year-old female patient submitted to surgery with a diagnosis of lithiasic cholecystopathy. Ectopy was evidenced by the histological study, due to the presence of acinar and ductal components of the pancreas and gall bladder corpus. The authors used their own pathological classification for this ectopy, and recommended that this entity be included more frequently in the differential diagnosis of alithiasic cholecystopathy and intramural and exophytic lesions of the gall bladder.