|
US researchers have found that 3D MRI can detect pancreatic cancer when it is smaller and so give patients a greater chance of survival.
Richard Semelka of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, studied outcomes for 57 pancreatic cancer patients and looked at their contrast-enhanced 3D gradient-echo MRI examinations. Radiologists correctly identified pancreatic cancer in 24 patients, he said, eight of those cancers were less than two centimetres in size meaning that the complete surgical resection they would undergo would be easier to carry out and so boost their chances of survival.
Pancreatic cancer is usually diagnosed too late, Semelka explains, and most of the 40,000 people diagnosed in the US die, making it the fourth most common cause of cancer death in the US. "The symptoms of the disease are somewhat non-specific and can easily be misinterpreted," he adds, "In addition, the disease is very aggressive so if the disease is missed or the diagnosis is delayed, the patient's chance for survival is dismal."
Gadolinium-enhanced 3D gradient-echo (GRE) MR images did indicate pancreatic cancer in three patients, but biopsy showed they did not have the disease. However, one did have a neuroendocrine tumour and one had focal pancreatitis. Three patients were lost to follow-up, said Semelka, "No patient with a study interpreted as normal was subsequently found to have pancreatic cancer." Semelka says that the technique "can be performed with a high degree of confidence and accuracy," in detecting pancreatic cancer.
Semelka and his colleagues are now working with the internists at University of North Carolina Hospitals to detect this disease earlier. They are encouraging them to refer their patients for a 3D MRI examination if a patient has severe mid-abdominal pain not explained by a back problem, sudden development of diabetes and/or sudden development of jaundice. Radiologists who are reading 3D MR images of patients with abdominal pain should also look for pancreatic cancer even if the patient didn't have the examination for that purpose.
Related Links: |
Enhanced MRI of a 1.8 cm pancreatic adenocarcinoma.
Richard Semelka |
