J Korean Surg Soc 2011;81:141-145 DOI: 10.4174/jkss.2011.81.2.141 CASE REPORT Cystic lymphangioma of the pancreas Bok-Kyung Sohn, Chang-Ho Cho1, Hyun-Dong Chae Departments of Surgery, 1Pathology, Catholic University of Daegu School of Medicine, Daegu, Korea Lymphangioma is a benign form of neoplasm arising from the lymphatic system. It occurs as a result of congenital malforma- tions of the lymphatics leading to the obstruction of local lymph flow and the development of lymphangiectasia. Lymphangiomas are common in pediatric patients, in the soft tissues of the neck and the axillae, but lymphangioma of the pancreas is extremely rare, accounting for less than 1% of these tumors. It occurs more frequently in females and is often lo- cated in the distal pancreas. Although extremely rare, cystic lymphangioma of the pancreas should be taken into consid- eration as a differential diagnosis of pancreatic cystic or retroperitoneal lesions, especially in women. Herein, we report on a case of cystic lymphangioma of the distal pancreas in a 37-year-old woman who was treated with complete surgical resection with a review of the literature. Key Words: Cystic lymphangioma, Pancreas, Retroperitoneal space JKSS Journal of the Korean Surgical Society pISSN 2233-7903ㆍeISSN 2093-0488 INTRODUCTION Lymphangioma is a benign form of lymphatic malfor- mation usually resulting from blockage in regional lymph ducts. Pathologically, it exhibits protein and eosinophilic exudate inside the swollen cystic space in a thin layer sur- rounded by the endothelial cells. In most cases, lym- phangioma develops during childhood, with varying symptoms according to the location of its development. The most frequent sites of the condition include the head and neck (75%) and the axilla (20%), with rare cases re- ported in the mediastinum, the mesothelium, the pericar- dium, the groin, and the intraperitoneum. Intraperitoneal lymphangiomas occur most frequently in the in the mesenteric region and less frequently in the mesocolic, greater omental, and retroperitoneal regions, Received September 28, 2010, Accepted December 2, 2010 the small intestinal and gastric walls, and the peritoneum [1]. Occurrence of cystic lymphangioma in the pancreas is extremely rare, accounting for less than one percent of re- ported cases [2]. To date, about 60 cases have been re- ported world-wide [3]. To our knowledge, this is the rarely reported case of pancreatic cystic lymphangioma in Korea. Therefore, we report this successfully treated case of pancreatic cystic lymphangioma with a brief review of the relevant litera- ture. CASE REPORT A 37-year-old woman was admitted to emergency serv- ices with complaints of left-sided abdominal pain which Correspondence to: Hyun-Dong Chae Department of Surgery, Catholic University of Daegu School of Medicine, 3056-6 Daemyeong 4-dong, Nam-gu, Daegu 705-718, Korea Tel: ＋82-53-650-4429, Fax: ＋82-53-624-7185, E-mail: bilgekar@yahoo.com cc Journal of the Korean Surgical Society is an Open Access Journal. All articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Copyright © 2011, the Korean Surgical Society