Gastrointestinal parasites, although an uncommon cause of biliary and pancreatic problems in western medicine, can produce fatal complications. A Swiss patient presented with acute pancreatitis, with no evidence of gall stones or history of alcohol abuse. He died after a short fulminant illness. At necropsy, an Ascaris lumbracoides was found impacted within the ampulla of Vater and serves as a ...

A 36-year-old woman presented with features of acute cholangitis. Ultrasonography showed distended gall bladder and mildly dilated common bile duct (CBD). Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) [Figure 1] prior to therapeutic ERCP showed the tail of a roundworm jutting out of the ampulla of Vater. In addition there was choledocholithiasis. The worm escaped into the CBD during EUS. ERCP revealed a mild dis...

Rhabdomyosarcoma of the biliary tree is a rare cause of biliary tract obstruction in childhood. A 3-year-old child is reported here after presenting with obstructive jaundice secondary to an embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma of the ampulla of Vater. He underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy followed by adjuvant chemotherapy and irradiation. He is now well and free of disease 5 years following treatment. Th...

Somatostatinoma of the gastrointestinal tract is a rare finding, especially arising from the ampulla of Vater. We present a man recently diagnosed with rectal adenocarcinoma who was found on imaging to have an ampullary mass. Histology and immunohistochemical staining of the biopsied tissue were consistent with a nonfunctioning somatostatinoma. The patient had neurofibromatosis, which have been...

Three sporadic, synchronous, and separate lesions in the ampulla of Vater and the head of the pancreas presented in an 81-year-old male. One was symptomatic and two were incidental. One was detected preoperatively (the ampullary lesion) and two by examination of the resected specimen (the neuroendocrine and pancreatic carcinomas). The case is summarized and the literature and the issue of commo...

Bile duct cancer is subdivided according to the anatomic location of origin into intrahepatic and extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, gallbladder cancer, or ampulla of Vater cancer. While biliary tract cancer is uncommon in Western countries, the incidence is relatively high in Asia, including Japan, and Latin America. However, in biliary tract cancers, the incidence of intrahepatic cholangiocarci...

This 49-year-old male, a victim of chronic hepatitis B-related liver cirrhosis, visited our emergency department due to hematemesis and tarry stool passage. Hypovolemic shock severe anemia (Hb 4.8 mg/dL) were noted on arrival. After fluid resuscitation blood transfusion, urgent esophagogastroduodenoscopy revealed no varices in the esophagus cardiac portion stomach; however, some was retained at...

Necrotizing hepatopancreatitis bacterium (NHPB) is an obligated intracellular bacteria causing severe hepatopancreatic damages and mass mortalities in penaeid shrimp. The worldwide distribution of penaeid shrimp as alien species threatens the life cycle of other crustacean species. The aim of the experiment was to evaluate the possibility of experimentally infecting the American lobster (Homaru...

Previous studies of the descriptive epidemiology of biliary tract cancers have not differentiated among different types of biliary tract cancer because until recently the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) did not classify them separately. Recent versions of the ICD now distinguish cancers of the gallbladder, extrahepatic bile ducts, and ampulla of Vater. In order to describe more p...