Pancreatic Incidentalomas

All asymptomatic pancreatic lesions, discovered incidentally by imaging for an unrelated indication can be considered pancreatic incidentalomas (PI). PI are discovered with increasing frequency as the use of high quality cross sectional imaging is becoming more widespread. These lesions cover a wide spectrum of pathology from benign simple cysts through potentially malignant lesions such as intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasia, to frankly malignant adenocarcinoma. The incidence of malignancy in PI is lower than in symptomatic pancreatic lesions (31% vs. 76%), however, malignant histology is found up to 30% a…