The Role Of Contrast-enhanced Ultrasound In Diagnosing Pancreatic Diseases

Objective To observe the enhancement patterns of pancreatic diseases and evaluate the role of contrast-enhanced ultrasound(CEUS)in diagnosing pancreatic diseases compared with conventional ultrasound and contrast-enhanced CT.Methods thirty-one patients with pancreatic diseases underwent CEUS using SonoVue.Of them,with final diagnosis including 17 malignant and 14 benign cases.The time of the beginning of enhancement,peak enhancement, the beginning of wash-out and the transittime(from the beginning of enhancement to wash-out)of the diseased area and normal pancreatic tissue were analyzed for each case.Results The beginning of enhancement of malignant pancreatic diseases was significantly slower than normal pancreatic tissue and the beginning of wash-out time was significantly faster than normal pancreatic tissue,while there was no significant difference between benign pancreatic diseases and normal pancreatic tissue.The transit time of malignant diseases was significantly shorter than benign diseases and normal pancreatic tissue.The most common enhancement pattern of malignant diseases was peripheral enhancement with irregular non-enhanced area inside,while the benign diseases appeared homogeneous enhancement.The diagnostic accuracy of CEUS and CECT in pancreatic diseases characterization was 87.1(27 / 31 cases),83.7(26/31cases)respectively,which were all significantly different from that of conventional ultrasound(54.8,17 / 31 cases).Conclusions CEUS can afford more information of the vascularization of pancreatic diseases,thus improve the diagnostic ability in pancreatic diseases characterization.The diagnostic accuracy of CEUS is similar to CECT.