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Hepatic haemangiomas are the most common benign hepatic tumour; they are usually solitary, less than 5 cm in size, and clinically silent. Giant cavernous haemangiomas are a minor subset of hepatic haemangiomas, often symptomatic due to a mass lesion, complications or compression of adjacent structures. Few of these are pedunculated—often difficult to diagnose because of their exophytic development and greater tendency towards complications through the twisting of their peduncle. We report the case of a 55-year-old woman with a giant pedunculated hepatic cavernous haemangioma causing abdominal pain, with epigastralgia mimicking a gastric stromal tumour. We discuss the diagnostic workup, focusing on the useful of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging findings and giving a brief report of the therapeutic management and literature review.

Background Metastases from breast cancer cause the frequent involvement of lung, bone, liver, and brain, while the occurrence of metastases to the gastrointestinal tract is rare, and more frequently discovered after a primary diagnosis of breast cancer. Solitary pancreatic metastases from breast cancer, without widespread disease, are actually unusual, and only 19 cases have been previously described; truly exceptional is a solitary pancreatic metastasis becoming evident together with the primary breast cancer. Case presentation A 68-year-old woman reported general fatigue, lethargy, and jaundice. Abdominal ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed an ampulloma of Vater’s papilla; moreover, a neoplastic nodule in the left breast was diagnosed. She underwent surgery for both breast cancer and ampulloma of Vater’s papilla. Pathological examination of pancreatic specimen, however, did not confirm primary carcinoma of the duodenal papilla, but showed a metastatic involvement of pancreas from lobular breast cancer. Immunohistochemistry has been essential to confirm the origin of the malignancy: hormone receptors and mammaglobin were expressed in both the primary breast tumor and the pancreatic metastasis. Conclusions This is one of the few reported cases in literature of an isolated and synchronous pancreatic metastasis from breast cancer, where the definitive diagnosis was obtained only after surgery. We discuss the controversies in this diagnosis and the choice of correct treatment. The surgical resection of solitary metastases can be performed in the absence of disseminated disease.