Fine needle aspiration cytology diagnosis of papillary tumor of the pancreas.

A case of papillary tumor of the pancreas in a young woman is reported in which the nature of the tumor was recognized preoperatively by fine needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy. The larger cell clumps in the aspirate had a branching papillary appearance in which multiple layers of tumor cells surrounded central vascular stalks. This perivascular clustering of tumor cells, resembling bunches of grapes, was reflected in the subsequent histologic material. Of interest was the presence of metachromatic globules in Wright-Giemsa-stained aspiration smears, corresponding to perivascular myxoid material seen in the histologic sections, which has been described so far, among pancreatic tumors, only among papillary-type tumors.