Pancreaticoduodenal arcades and dorsal pancreatic artery: comparison of CT angiography with three-dimensional volume rendering, maximum intensity projection, and shaded-surface display.

The objective of this study was to compare the ability of CT angiography to depict the pancreaticoduodenal arcades and the dorsal pancreatic artery using the techniques of three-dimensional (3D) volume rendering, maximum intensity projection (MIP), and shaded-surface display (SSD).Twenty-seven patients were selected at random from a group of 42 patients undergoing arterial-phase helical CT angiography before liver transplantation. CT angiograms were constructed from identical data sets using 3D volume rendering, MIP, and SSD.Seventy-two vessels were evaluated in 27 patients. Three-dimensional volume rendering depicted 24 anterior and 22 posterior arcades and 26 dorsal pancreatic arteries; combined MIP and SSD depicted 14 anterior and 13 posterior arcades and 19 dorsal pancreatic arteries. Thirty vessels with diameters of between 2 and 3 mm were well seen with 3D volume rendering but were incompletely depicted with MIP and SSD. Sixteen vessels with diameters of greater than 3 mm were well seen using all th...