The ventral pancreas originally forms as an evagination of the common bile duct at 32 days gestation and its duct, the uncinate duct, eventually rotates with the ventral anlage to join the dorsal pancreas and fuse with the main pancreatic duct. Thus, though often considered a "branch" duct of the pancreas, embryologically, the uncinate duct is the "main" pancreatic duct of the ventral pancreas. This concept is not fully addressed in the current definitions of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms of the pancreas (IPMN) where international consensus guidelines consider the main-duct IPMN as high risk for malignancy and most small branch-duct IPMN as low risk for malignancy. Thus, it is important to recognize that isolated uncinate-duct IPMN can occur and, based on its embryologic origin and increased association with high-grade dysplasia and invasive cancer, may be managed conceptually as a main duct type of disease rather than a branch duct until better biomarkers of malignancy are discovered. The images provide an example of this unique disease process.
Keywords: Branch duct; IPMN; Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm; Main duct; Pancreas; Pancreas cancer; Uncinate.