CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Pathology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1662856
Primary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma of the spleen: A case report and literature review
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery, Second Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
- 2Department of Neonatology, Zhejiang University School of Medicine Children's Hospital, Hangzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Tumours of the spleen are uncommon, and most represent metastases from primary organs. Primary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma of the spleen is an extremely rare tumour. Only 11 cases have been reported in the literature. Case presentation: Herein, we present a case of primary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma in the spleen in a 50-year-old woman. Abdominal CT and MRI revealed a 9.5 × 6.5 cm mixed solid-cystic lesion with heterogeneous enhancement of the mural nodules and septations, with secondary extension abutting the gastric fundus and pancreatic tail. Notably, tumour biomarker profiling demonstrated remarkable increases in CA19-9 (>12000 U/mL) and CEA (41.5 ng/mL) levels. Following splenectomy, histopathology revealed the mass to be a mucinous cystadenocarcinoma. Given that metastatic cystadenocarcinoma is relatively common, investigations were performed to evaluate the primary site of malignancy. A whole-body PET-CT scan did not reveal any metabolically active lesions in any part of the body. Neither upper gastrointestinal endoscopy nor colonoscopy revealed any primary malignant lesions. Hence, it was reported as a primary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma of the spleen. Conclusion: The need for presenting this case is due to its rarity and because mucinous cystadenocarcinoma can be a rare differential diagnosis in cases of malignant splenic cysts.
Keywords: Primary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma, Spleen, complete surgical removal, Ectopic pancreas, case report
Received: 23 Jul 2025; Accepted: 01 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhou, Zhan and Yan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sheng Yan, shengyan@zju.edu.cn
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.