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Lipomatous Infiltration of the Pancreas

Stuart H. Danovitch, MD; Robert Paley, MD; Oscar Mann, MD; Robert Choisser, MD; Theodore Bayless, MD

JAMA. 1985;253(10):1442-1443.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

THE "vanishing pancreas" is a sobriquet for lipomatous replacement of the gland and is occasionally a clinically evident phenomenon causing symptoms and malabsorption.^1,2 In children it is rare; it occurs with skeletal abnormalities and cytopenias and differs from cystic fibrosis in that sweat test results are normal.^3,4 In adults, the entity is recognized infrequently. Two cases were reported in 1959 from the Mayo Clinic, and their review revealed six other published cases in the literature.² Subsequently, scattered reports have appeared and the availability of computed tomography has increasingly led to the recognition of this entity prior to surgery or autopsy.^4,5 In the last six months we have seen two adults with long-standing digestive complaints, diabetes, and steatorrhea whose pancreata had vanished.

Report of Cases

CASE 1.—

A 70-year-old woman has had chronic problems of obesity, mild hypertension, episodic diarrhea, and flatulence for ten to 15 years. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Departments of Medicine (Drs Danovitch, Mann, and Choisser) and Radiology (Dr Paley), Sibley Memorial Hospital, Washington, DC; and the Department of Medicine, The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore (Dr Bayless).

Footnotes
Reprint requests to 4400 Jenifer St NW, Suite 333, Washington, DC 20015 (Dr Danovitch).

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