The glucagon syndrome
Goldinger, G.; Aeberhard, P.
Helvetica Chirurgica Acta 47(1-2): 199-204
1980
ISSN/ISBN: 0018-0181 PMID: 6254912 Document Number: 155191
Although the features of the glucagonoma syndrome had been described in isolated reports since 1942, this potentially curable condition has only recently been adequately defined. In 1974, MALLINSON collected nine cases and described the association of a peculiar skin rash with glucagon-secreting tumors of the pancreas. The typical skin rash, necrolytic migratory erythema, is accompanied by other disturbances including weight loss, anaemia, glossitis, cheilitis angularis, psychiatric symptoms. Diabetes is not a prominent feature, and the impairment of glucose tolerance can indeed be very slight. Up to 1979, about 50 cases have been reported. More than half of these patients had malignant tumors. The authors report on a 67-year-old man in whom a glucagonoma in the tail of the pancreas has been resected with apparent cure. The almost complete disappearance of the skin rash within three weeks of extirpation of the tumor has been most impressive. In June 1979 a similar tumor has been operated by one of the authors in a 60-year-old man. In this instance the tumor was located in the pancreatic corpus and could be radically resected by left-sided pancreatectomy.