Evaluation of Chronic Pancreatitis With T ρ MRI: A Preliminary Study.

BACKGROUND

Chronic pancreatitis (CP) can result in persistent damage to the endocrine and exocrine tissues of the pancreas. There is an unmet need for quantitative methods to evaluate CP noninvasively.

PURPOSE

To investigate the utility of T ρ magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the assessment of CP.

STUDY TYPE

Prospective.

POPULATION

Twenty patients with CP and 24 healthy volunteers.

FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: 3T MRI including T ρ sequence (spin lock time = 0, 1, 10, 20, 40, 60 msec).

ASSESSMENT

Pancreatic T ρ values and anterior-posterior (AP) diameters in the head, body, and tail were measured in all participants. Regions of interest with circle (ROI ) and free-hand (ROI ) were drawn for T ρ value measurements.

STATISTICAL TESTS

Mann-Whitney U-test; Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test; receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve; and Bland-Altman analysis.

RESULTS

The T ρ values of pancreatic tail and the mean T ρ values for ROI and the T ρ values of pancreatic tail for ROI in patients with CP were significantly higher than those in healthy volunteers (all P < 0.05). Pancreatic head AP diameter significantly increased, while pancreatic tail AP diameter significantly decreased in patients with CP compared with healthy volunteers (both P < 0.05). The areas under the ROC curves (AUCs) of pancreatic tail T ρ values with ROI and tail AP diameter in diagnosing CP were 0.744 and 0.798, respectively. A combination of pancreatic tail T ρ values with ROI and tail AP diameter achieved good performance for diagnosing CP (AUC = 0.838).

DATA CONCLUSION

T ρ MRI might be a potential technique for the noninvasive evaluation of CP. Level of Evidence 2 Technical Efficacy Stage 2 J. MAGN. RESON. IMAGING 2021;53:577-584.