Ultrasonographic manifestations of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors / 中国医学影像技术

ABSTRACT

Objective To observe manifestations of neuroendocrine tumors of pancreas (NETP) in conventional ultrasound and contrast enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS).Methods Imaging features of histopathologically proved NETP in 90 patients were retrospectively analyzed.Results Conventional ultrasound was performed in all 90 patients,while CEUS was performed in 15 patients.Among all 90 cases,single lesion was found in 85 cases,while multiple lesions were found in 5 cases.The tumors located in pancreatic head (n =41),pancreatic body (n =13) or tail (n =36),respectively.The lesions in 81 cases were hypoechoic,8 were complex echoic and 1 was anechoic,with diameters ranged from 0.80 cm to 12.50 cm.Well-defined boundary of lesions were found in 67 cases,and ill-defined boundary of lesions were found in the other 23 cases.Regular shape lesions were found in 64 cases,while irregular shape lesions were found in 26 cases.Color Doppler ultrasound showed abundant tumor blood flow signals in 35 cases.Main pancreatic duct dilatation was found in 14 cases.Among 15 cases underwent CEUS,hyper-enhancement of tumors during the artery phase and slight hyper-enhancement or iso-enhancement during the delayed phase were observed in 9 cases,while slightly hyperenhancement of tumors during artery phase and hypo-enhancement during delayed phase were observed in 4 cases.Slightly hypo-enhancement peripheral to the masses during artery phase and wash-out during delayed phase with plate-shaped regions without enhancement in the center of tumors were observed in 2 cases.Conclusion NETP mainly manifested as well-defined hypoechoic lesions with regular shape in pancreas in conventional ultrasound,hyper-enhancement during artery phase and no obvious wash-out during delayed phase in CEUS.