Tumor staging of pancreatic adenocarcinoma using early- and late-phase helical CT

OBJECTIVE. We compared early-phase CT with late-phase CT in the evaluation of pancreatic adenocarcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS. Both early- and late-phase CT images of 25 pancreati c adenocarcinomas were compared with surgical-pathologic findings. We evalu ated tumor detectability, tumor size, and local tumor invasion. RESULTS, Tumor detectability was 96% on early-phase CT imaging and 64% on l ate-phase CT imaging (p <.01). Sensitivity for anterior serosal invasion, r etroperitoneal invasion, and arterial invasion on early-phase CT exceeded s ensitivity on late-phase CT (p <.05). However, specificity for all factors on early-phase CT was less than or equal to specificity on late-phase CT. T he grade of local tumor invasion on early-phase CT achieved better agreemen t with the surgical-pathologic results than did late-phase CT, especially f or tumor size and retroperitoneal invasion. CONCLUSION. Early-phase CT was better than late-phase CT in revealing tumor s, tumor size, and retroperitoneal invasion.