Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Pancreas

Purpose: To develop a diffusion-tensor-imaging (DTI) protocol that is sensitive to the complex diffusion and perfusion properties of the healthy and malignant pancreas tissues. Materials and Methods: Twenty-eight healthy volunteers and nine patients with pancreatic-ductal-adenocacinoma (PDAC), were scanned at 3T with T2-weighted and DTI sequences. Healthy volunteers were also scanned with multi-b diffusionweighted-imaging (DWI), whereas a standard clinical protocol complemented the PDAC patients’ scans. Image processing at pixel resolution yielded parametric maps of three directional diffusion coefficients l1, l2, l3, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), and fractional anisotropy (FA), as well as a l1-vector map, and a