THE EVALUATION OF SLOW INJECTION DYNAMIC CT FOR DIAGNOSIS OF PANCREAS CANCER

Slow-injection dynamic CT scanning (SI-CT) was performed on 34 patients who had pancreas cancer and were operated. We evaluated SI-CT for diagnosing pancreas cancer. In SI-CT imaging, the main tumor is hypodense compared with adjacent normal pancreatic tissue. The detectability of main tumors was 94% by SI-CT but 76% by plain CT. The criteria of the vascular invasion by SI-CT were classified in four types. By these criteria, the diagnostic accuracy of vascular invasion was 100% in the superior mesenteric artery and 100% in the portal vein. On the other hand, the angiographic diagnostic accuracy of vascular invasion was 88% in the superior mesenteric artery and 91% in the portal vein. SI-CT was very effective not only for the detection of the main tumor but also for the diagnosis of vascular invasion.