Case report demonstrates metastatic renal cell carcinoma mimicking a pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, suggesting late recurrence can lead to diagnostic challenges.
A 71-year-old man presented with weight loss and abdominal bloating for 3 months. He was a known case of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) in remission. Investigations discovered an enhancing lesion in the pancreatic head and neck region, which on 68Ga-DOTATATE PET imaging showed intense tracer-avidity along with tracer-avid lung nodules and a muscular soft tissue lesion mimicking a metastatic pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. However, the histopathology of the pancreatic mass revealed metastatic ccRCC. This case highlights that RCC can cause extremely late recurrences and rarely mimics neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) due to SSTR expression.
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Sharma et al. (2026) studied this question.
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