Background: Diagnosis of variety of abdominal abnormalities could be easily done by diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI) with apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) quantification. Several studies have demonstrated that combining DWI with ADC measurement can aid in the detection and characterization of pancreatic masses. The objective of the current study is the evaluation of diffusion weighted imaging role as a non-invasive method in evaluation of pancreatic masses with histopathological correlation.
Patients and methods: The study included 59 patients performed at Radiology Department of Mansoura University Hospital. The patients were between the ages of 30 and 71 years. This research was carried out using a 1.5 T Philips Ingenia MRI scanner. All patients underwent history taking and MRI with DWI.
Results: Malignant lesions mean ADC was about 1.14 (SD 0.14) x 10-3 mm2/sec. Mean ADC of benign lesions was about 2.38 (SD 0.73) x 10-3 mm2/sec. With a cutoff point of 1.36 x 10-3 mm2/sec for differentiating malignant from benign lesions, the benign lesions' ADC value was statistically substantially higher than the malignant lesions', with 95.8% sensitivity, 90.9 % specificity, and 94.4% accuracy.
Conclusion: Combining qualitative and quantitative examination of DWI and ADC results could assist to distinguish between malignant and benign pancreatic tumors. The evaluation of pancreatic masses can be aided by combining DWI with conventional imaging, which has been demonstrated to be an easy, non-invasive procedure.