Morphological significance of associated epithelial cords and ductlike structures in certain tumors of the pancreatic islets.

The association of epithelial cord cells and ductlike structures in 2 cases of pancreatic islet tumors is presented. The first case was characterized by multiple pancreatic nodes of beta cell insulinoma in a 35-year-old woman. The second case was a Zollinger-Ellison syndrome in a 10-year-old male child with perforated duodenal ulcer due to an islet cell tumor of an aberrant pancreas in the omentrum. Stress is laid upon the striking continuity of the tumorous endocrine and exocrinelike histological formations reproducing the morphological pattern of ducto-insular relationships in histogenesis and islet regeneration.