A new method for the diagnosis of acute hemorrhagic-necrotizing pancreatitis using contrast-enhanced CT.
Twenty-eight consecutive patients with a first attack of alcohol-induced pancreatitis were studied using contrast-enhanced CT. The findings on CT were then related to the course of the disease. The patients with acute hemorrhagic-necrotizing pancreatitis showed significantly lower enhancement values of the pancreatic parenchyma than those with milder forms of the disease. The next 20 patients with severe pancreatitis were scanned using a slightly modified procedure. The enhancement values were calculated and plotted on the graphs for the 2 former groups. Two categories of pancreatic enhancement were found: "low enhancement" and "high enhancement." In all 10 patients with "low-enhancement" values surgery revealed hemorrhagic-necrotizing pancreatitis. In the 10 patients with "high-enhancement" values conservative treatment was continued, and the clinical course was nonfulminant in all of them.
D000208:Acute Disease; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000150:complications; D006470:Hemorrhage / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D007482:Iothalamate Meglumine; D009336:Necrosis; D010195:Pancreatitis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000209:etiology; D011856:Radiographic Image Enhancement; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*
D007482:Iothalamate Meglumine