to recognize signs of vascular invasion in pancreatic carcinoma to accurately do the T-staging of pancreatic carcinoma based on computer-tomographic findings to recognize pancreatic tumors with no local contraindications for curative surgery based on computer-tomographic findings

Pancreatic carcinoma is a tumor with very poor prognosis. Surgery is the only curative technique in pancreatic carcinoma. Unfortunately, at the moment of the diagnosis, most of the tumors are unavailable for curative surgery. Pancreatic surgery is a tehnique with a high mortality and morbidity. Zamboni and co appreciate, in a 2007 paper, mortality of the procedure at 5% and morbidity at 40%. In our series mortality is a little bit higher- 10% and morbidity is comparable-40%. The radiologist has to answer the question which...

CT was performed using a 16 slice scanner (Siemens Somatom Emotion 16, Erlangen, Germany). Patients were asked to drink 1000 ml of water 30-45 minutes before the procedure. The abdominal scan was done in the late arterial phase and in the portal venous phase. We used bolus tracking at 120 UH and a delay of 15 seconds for the late arterial phase. The injection rate was at 3-3,5ml/second. We used thin-section scanning and MPR and MIP reconstructions to better deliniate vascular anatomy. We considered vascular...

multislice CT with MPR and MIP reconstructions gives a accurate view of the great blood vessels and permits us to appreciate if vascular invasion exists in patients with pancreatic tumors multislice CT has very good negative and positive predictive values for the diagnostic of unresectability of pancreatic carcinoma

1. Giulia Zamboni, JB Kruskal et al. Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma- value of multidetector CT in preoperative evaluation. Radiology 2007; 245 (3): 770-778 2. C.Valls et al. Dual phase helical CT of pancreatic adenocarcinoma AJR 2002; 178:821-826 3 Li H et al. Pancreatic adenocarcinoma: signs of vascular invasion determined by multidetector row CT. The British Journal of Radiology, 79 (2006), 880–887 4. Phoa SS, Reeders JW, Stoker J, Rauws EA, Gouma DJ, Laméris JS. CT criteria for venous invasion in patients with pancreatic head carcinoma. Br J...