Different clinicopathologic findings in two histologic types of carcinoma of papilla of Vater.

The aim of this study was to investigate the differences between the clinicopathological findings in two histologic types of carcinoma of the papilla of Vater. We histologically classified carcinoma of the papilla into two types: 1) an intestinal type that resembles tubular adenocarcinoma of the stomach or colon, and 2) a pancreaticobiliary type that is characterized by papillary projections with scant fibrous cores. We examined 53 cases of resected carcinoma of the papilla. The intestinal-type carcinomas were similar to the intestinal mucosa in that they had lysozyme-containing, Paneth or argyrophil cells, as demonstrated by the immunohistochemically positive stainings for the anti-lysozyme antibody. Although both the sizes of the two types of carcinomas and the age distributions of cases with the two types of carcinoma were almost the same, the prognosis of the cases with the intestinal type was much better than that of the cases with the pancreaticobiliary type. Histological lymph node metastasis was found significantly more often in the pancreaticobiliary type. This result was supported by the fact that small carcinomas of the intestinal type showed little or no invasion into the surrounding interstitium, as opposed to the pancreaticobiliary type, which had a strong infiltrative tendency. The pathogenesis of carcinoma of the papilla of Vater should be further evaluated, taking into consideration the existence of these two histologic types.