Acute recurrent pancreatitis: a possible clinical manifestation of ampullary cancer.

Context: Acute recurrent pancreatitis still poses diagnostic difficulties. The coexistence or moreover the causative relationship of carcinoma of the ampulla of Vater and acute recurrent pancreatitis is fairly rare.
Case Report: We present a case of carcinoma of the ampulla of Vater that presented with acute recurrent necrotizing pancreatitis complicated with pseudocysts. A diagnosis of malignancy in the ampulla was only made after several ERCP attempts due to residual inflammation at the periampullary area.
Conclusion: Malignancy at the ampulla of Vater causing recurrent episodes of pancreatitis represents a realistic risk and attempts to diagnose the underlying cause should always take into account the possibility of cancer.