Pancreatic mass with sonoelastography, fokal pancreatitis or pancreatic adeno ca?

Background and Aims: Ultrasonography is a useful method in pancreatic masses, especially in the localization of lesions in the tail, and the contribution to the benign-malignant differential diagnosis of focal pancreatic lesions is limited. In addition, multislice computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging methods are used to detect pancreatic cancer-focal pancreatitis some difficulties are experienced in the differential diagnosis and sometimes biopsy is needed. In this study, transabdominal ultrasonography and simultaneous sonoelastography were performed in patients who could not undergo an optimal differential diagnosis for focal pancreatitis or pancreatic adeno ca, and the contribution of sonoelastography to differential diagnosis was investigated. Materials and Methods: In this study, sonoelastography findings of 52 pancreatic ca and 14 focal pancreatitis patients were compared histopathologically in our hospital between 2013-2017. Results: The mean age of pancreatic adeno-ca patients was statistically higher than focal pancreatitis patients. The mean level of serum alfafetoprotein was significantly higher in patients with adeno ca than in patients with focal pancreatitis. However, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in the diameter of the lesions and strain index values obtained in the sonoelastography. Furthermore, no significant difference was found between adenocarcinoma and focal pancreatitis in terms of color coding types. Conclusion: Sonoelastography is a promising technique to improve the characterization and differentiation between benign and malignant masses displayed with excellent sensitivity. However, at this stage, the specificity of sonoelastography is still low in terms of the difference between pancreatic adenocarcinoma and focal pancreatitis