Studies of the growth and infiltration of experimental tumor of the pancreas in rabbits.

An experimentally transplanted pancreatic cancer was induced by means of an intraductal injection of Vx2 carcinoma supernatant into the pancreatic duct of rabbits. The presence of ductal obstruction appeared to assist the nidation and growth of injected cancer cells in the pancreas. Tumors induced in the head of the pancreas grew by extension to the body and tail where they also produced interspersed, nodular tumor masses. Tumors induced in the body and tail region, on the other hand, grew by direct expansion towards the head, but this did not produce the interspersed nodular tumors in the head portion. These observations indicate that cancer of the head of the pancreas associated with the stenosis or obstruction of the pancreatic duct resulted in ductal dissemination and extensive lymphatic infiltration in the body and tail, a wider cancer invasion than recognizable at the gross cancer border. This extension was noncontinuous and interspersed, so that radical curative surgery for such cancer of the head of the pancreas would indicate total pancreatectomy.