Pancreatic microcystic serous cystadenoma: a lethal disease? Rare case of a life-threatening haemorrhage.

Serous pancreatic cystadenomas are benign tumours and most cases are detected incidentally. Complications are unusual. A patient with a history of a large pancreatic serous cystadenoma (SCA) presented to the emergency department with abdominal pain and haemodynamic shock. After haemodynamic stabilisation, an urgent abdominal CT scan revealed a large hemoperitoneum but the origin of the bleeding was not found. The patient was submitted to an angiography that revealed a bleeding hypervascular pancreatic mass and an embolisation was done successfully. After 3 weeks, the patient underwent a laparotomic left pancreatectomy with en bloc splenectomy. The anatomopathological results were consistent with a microcystic SCA of the pancreas. Despite the high vascularity of pancreatic SCA, haemorrhage is a very rare but life-threatening complication. © BMJ Publishing Group Limited 2020. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.