A 75-year-old man visited our hospital for the examination of a tumor in the pancreas. Computed tomography showed an 85×85-mm low-density tumor in the pancreas. The tumor was pathologically diagnosed as poorly differentiated carcinoma by endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration. Although we started chemotherapy, the patient died 84 days after the diagnosis. An autopsy demonstrated a ruptured anaplastic carcinoma with mucoepidermoid carcinoma of the pancreas. Anaplastic carcinoma with mucoepidermoid carcinoma is a very rare histologic subtype of pancreatic carcinoma, so pathological findings are important for predicting the patient's prognosis. Physicians should be aware of this rare but fatal disease.
Keywords: anaplastic carcinoma; mucoepidermoid carcinoma; pancreas.