Eur Radiol: Elastography to distinguish pancreatic cancer from autoimmune pancreatitis!

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly lethal malignant tumor with the highest 5-year mortality rate among all solid malignant tumors.

The mechanical properties of the pancreas provide new insights into the characteristics of the disease.

Recently, a study published in the journal European Radiology prospectively studied the stiffness and fluidity of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP) on tomographic elastography, and evaluated their role in differentiating this.

Tomoelastography technology provides high-resolution shear wave velocity maps (c in m/s as a unit) and phase angle (in rad as a unit), which can extract mechanical characterization of the stiffness and fluidity of the pancreas.

The hardness and fluidity of AIP are significantly lower than that of PDAC, and the hardness and fluidity of AIP are significantly higher than that of healthy pancreas.

The table shows the pancreatic stiffness and fluidity of PDAC, AIP and normal pancreas measured by 3 readers.

The figure scatter plot shows pancreatic cancer, its proximal and distal pancreatic parenchyma (located on the left and right sides of the tumor, respectively), and the pancreatic stiffness (a) and fluidity (b) of AIP.

Elastography technology can easily, objectively and unbiasedly evaluate the mechanical characteristics of pancreatic tissue.

Liang Zhu,Jing Guo,Zhengyu Jin,et al.