A comparative study between pancreas scintigraphy and endoscopic retrograde pancreatic parenchymography

Fifteen patients with a suspected pancreatic disease were examined by both pancreatic scintigraphy using 75Se-selenomethionine and endoscopic retrograde pancreatic parenchymography (ERPP). These two diagnostic procedures have different mechanism of parenchymal imaging. In scintigraphy, uptake of 75Se-selenomethionine depends on metabolic activity of the pancreatic parenchyma while in ERPP visualization of pancreatic tissue depends on patency of the pancreatic duct, permeability of the periductal tissue and cell function of the pancreatic parenchyma. In comparative study, excellent concordance of findings occurred in 11 of 15 cases. An interesting difference of finding occurred in a case of chronic pancreatitis who had marked involvement of pancreatic duct. In this case, scintigraphy visualized entire pancreas though uptake of the radioisotope was diffusely diminished, while ERPP failed to visualize the body and tail. Another interesting finding was difference of image of pancreatic body. In scintigraphy, a relatively cold area is often seen in body of the pancreas in normal subjects and explained as a result of anatomical thinning of the organ by impression of vertebra and major blood vessels. In our series, 5 cases showed such a finding in scintigraphy, while in ERPP 4 of these 5 cases showed no evidence of localized thinning of the organ. A combination of these two imaging procedures of pancreatic parenchyma with different mechanism provides more detailed anatomical and pathophysiological condition of the pancreatic diseases. (author)