Pancreatic adenocarcinomas without secondary signs on multiphasic multidetector CT: association with clinical and histopathologic features

To determine the clinical, histopathologic and imaging features of pancreatic adenocarcinomas without secondary signs on dynamic CT. Seventy patients (mean age 70 years) with histologically proven pancreatic adenocarcinoma underwent preoperative contrast material-enhanced multiphasic multidetector CT before pancreatic resection. In each patient, clinical data including carbohydrate antigen 19-9, frequency of isoattenuating tumours, and presence of secondary signs and histopathologic findings such as tumour location, tumour stage, and microscopic infiltrative growth grade were evaluated. Ten tumours (14 %) were without secondary signs, and 60 (86 %) were with secondary signs. Tumours without and with secondary signs were located in the uncinate process in 5 (50 %) and 3 (5 %), head in 3 (30 %) and 29 (48 %), body in 2 (20 %) and 22 (37 %), and tail in 0 (0 %) and 6 (10 %), respectively (p =.001). The frequency of isoattenuating pancreatic adenocarcinomas without secondary signs was significantly higher than those with secondary signs (p = 0.034). The tumour stage of pancreatic adenocarcinomas without secondary signs was earlier than that in tumours with secondary signs (p = 0.041). Pancreatic adenocarcinomas without secondary signs is characterized by the presence of uncinate and isoattenuating tumours and earlier tumour stage compared to tumours with secondary signs. (orig.)