Editor's quiz: GI snapshot
Elevated 
-fetoprotein and a pancreatic tumour
1 Department of Medical Imaging, National Taiwan University Hospital and National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
2 Department of Surgery, National Taiwan University Hospital and National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
3 Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital and National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
Correspondence to:
Dr Jaw-Town Lin, Department of Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, No. 7, Chung-Shan South Road, Taipei, Taiwan; jawtown@ha.mc.ntu.edu.tw
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
CLINICAL PRESENTATION
A 47-year-old man without any discomfort was found to have elevated serum 
-fetoprotein (AFP) of 41.0 ng/ml (normal range <20 ng/ml) during a health check-up in January 2000. Physical examination and laboratory data were non-contributory except for positive hepatitis B surface antigen. Two years later, his AFP increased to 388.0 ng/ml in March 2002. A contrast-enhanced abdominal CT scan demonstrated nearly total fatty replacement of the pancreas and a well-defined tumour, measuring 2 cm in diameter, at the pancreatic tail (fig 1, arrow). Serum levels of carbohydrate antigen 19-9 and carcinoembryonic antigen were 7.88 U/ml (normal range <37 U/ml) and 0.82 ng/ml (normal range <5.0 ng/ml), respectively. Two months later, his AFP rose to 490.5 ng/ml. The patient underwent a positron emission tomography (PET) scan, which showed a focus of increased uptake at the pancreatic tail (fig 2).
Figure 1 Extensive fatty infiltration of the pancreas with a | |||||||||
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Gut 2008 57: 462.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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