Diffusion-weighted MRI of the normal adult pancreas: the effect of age on apparent diffusion coefficient values.

AIM

To investigate and characterize the effect of age on apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values in the normal adult pancreas using diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWI).

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Five hundred and fifty-nine adult patients without pancreatic disease, ranging from 20-81 years of age (mean 50.9 years; 436 men, 123 women), were included in this study. Breath-hold single-shot echo-planar DWI (b-values = 0, 500 s/mm(2)) was employed to determine the ADCs across all patients. Dependency of ADCs on age was characterized using a Spearman rank-order correlation test.

RESULTS

Across the age spectrum, there was no significant correlation between ADC and age (p = 0.409).

CONCLUSION

The findings of the present study suggest that the effect of age on ADCs can be excluded from the diagnosis of pancreatic diseases and design of future studies using breath-hold single-shot DWI and ADCs (as calculated with b-values of 0 and 500 s/mm(2)).