Pancreatic carcinoma has a very poor prognosis because of its nature for early local and distant spread. Especially, pancreatic body and tail carcinoma is usually found at a later stage, accompanying the carcinoma invasion to major vessels and to the retroperitoneum. In Western countries, the respectability of the pancreatic body and tail carcinoma and the 5-year survaival is estimated at both about 10% 1, 2). In pancreatic body and tail carcinoma, the “peripancreatic radiating thick-strands”, deriving from primary lesion and is associated with increased CT...

We retrospectively evaluated the contrast-enhanced MDCT images of 17 patients with pancreatic body and tail carcinoma who underwent surgical operation from January 2005 to August 2010. <Subjects> 12 men and 5 women (ranging in age from 57 to 85 years, with a mean age of 71.6 years) ・tumor site: body of pancreas (5 case), body-tail of pancreas (9 cases), tail of pancreas (3 cases) ＊Carcinomas located in or extended to the pancreatic head were excluded. ・Pathological diagnosis : tubular adenocarcinoma in all cases ・TS (tumor...

1. Presence of “peripancreatic radiating thick-stands” on MDCT a) Frequency Positive finding in 13(76%) of 17 cases b) Frequency in each 4 area (Fig.2) (A: abdominal aorta，IVC: inferior vena cava，PV: portal vein，S: superior mesenteric artery) The “peripancreatic radiating thick-strands” was seen at the anterior area in nine cases (69%), the posterior in eight cases (62%), the superior area in 10 cases (77%), and at the posterior area in 13 cases (100%), respectively. The difference in detectability was mainly due to the amount of adipose tissues...

““Peripancreatic radiating thick-strands”” seen on MDCT in pancreatic body and tail carcinoma reflects the extrapancreatic carcinoma invasion with marked fibrotic thickening of adipose tissue septa, including micro-vessels. This CT finding is important to decide the preoperative staging, and to judge the necessity for chemotherapy.

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Shunro Matsumoto, MD Oita university faculty of Medicine, Department of Radiology 879-5593 Idaigaoka 1-1 Hasama-machi yufu-shi Oita JAPAN Phone: 81-97-586-5934 Fax: 81-97-586-0025 E-mail: [email protected]