ABSTRACT
Pancreatic endocrine tumors are benign or malignant epithelial tumors that show evidence of endocrine cell differentiation. Pancreatic endocrine tumors are uncommon, representing <5% of pancreatic tumors in surgical series.1,2 Clinically silent endocrine tumors have been detected in 0.3 to 1.6% of unselected autopsies in which only a few sections of the pancreas were examined and in up to 10% of autopsies in which the whole pancreas was systematically investigated both grossly and microscopically. Most tumors from these series are small (less than 1 cm), in elderly patients (mean age of 70 years) and benign (clinically silent microadenomas).
