title: Computed tomography in the evaluation of patients with suspected carcinoma of the pancreas.
abstract: The authors assess the efficacy of CT of the pancreas in a series of 151 patients with suspected pancreatic carcinoma. CT diagnoses were divided into four categories based on the original interpretation: "mass" or carcinoma (53 scans); normal pancreas (68 scans); normal pancreas, but another pathologic process was discovered on the CT scan (20 scans); and unsatisfactory or indeterminate examinations (10 scans). In more than 50% of the erroneous diagnoses of pancreatic carcinoma, the mass lesion seen on CT was found at surgery or angiography to be adjacent to, not arising from, the pancreas. False-positive interpretation can be avoided by improved equipment and technique and the accumulation of interpreter experience.
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D014670:Ampulla of Vater / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D001650:Bile Duct Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006801:Humans; D007890:Leiomyosarcoma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed