Primary Carcinoma of the Pancreas in Children

Oberling and Guérin1made a careful review of carcinoma of the pancreas in 1931. They noted that before the discovery of Wirsung's canal tumors and indurations of the pancreas were reported. Later case reports multiplied so that at the end of the eighteenth century "neoplastic injury" of the pancreas was considered very frequent. These authors held that it is obvious that the majority of the cases of "scirrhous pancreas" described at that time were not primary cancers and cited Bayle,2who in 1812 was the first to stress the rarity of this condition, and also Claessen,3who in 1842, from a study of all cases of cancer of the pancreas published up to that time, showed that under the term "scirrhous" were grouped primary cancers, secondary tumors and chronic pancreatitis. This confusion, owing to the absence of histologic verification, continued throughout the greater part of the nineteenth