[Pancreatic metastases. Report of four cases and literature review].

The authors present the history of 4 patients with pancreatic metastases revealed by CT and MR during the last 2 years. In 2 patients pancreatic metastases developed more than 10 years after the primary renal neoplasm was diagnosed. In the other two patients (one with non small cell lung cancer and one with non-Hodgkin disease) pancreatic metastases developed shortly after the diagnosis of the primary malignancy. According to literature data metastases in the pancreas are rare. The authors conclude that the symptoms and imaging features of pancreatic metastases are variable and, therefore, non-invasive imaging diagnosis is difficult. To resolve this problem a thorough scrutiny of the medical history of the patients and functional imaging methods may be helpful.