Luo YG, Wu M, Chen HG. Retrospective analysis of pathological types and imaging features in pancreatic cancer: A comprehensive study. World J Gastrointest Oncol 2025; 17(1): 99153 [DOI: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i1.99153]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yang-Gang Luo, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Imaging, Xuanhan County People’s Hospital, No. 579 Jiefang Middle Road, Dazhou 636150, Sichuan Province, China. lygxuanhan@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Retrospective Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Jan 15, 2025; 17(1): 99153 Published online Jan 15, 2025. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v17.i1.99153
Table 1 Baseline characteristics of the study population
Characteristic
Value
Age (years), mean ± SD
62.7 ± 11.3
Gender, n (%)
Male
270 (54)
Female
230 (46)
Presenting symptoms, n (%)
Abdominal pain
340 (68)
Weight loss
260 (52)
Jaundice
175 (35)
Nausea/vomiting
125 (25)
Diabetes mellitus (new onset)
75 (15)
Table 2 Distribution of pathological types
Pathological type
Cases
Percentage
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma
320
64%
Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms
75
15%
Neuroendocrine tumors
50
10%
Other rare types
55
11%
Acinar cell carcinoma
20
4%
Solid pseudopapillary neoplasm
15
3%
Mucinous cystic neoplasm
12
2.4%
Pancreatoblastoma
5
1%
Miscellaneous
3
0.6%
Table 3 Imaging features of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma
Imaging feature
Percentage
Number of cases
Hypodense mass on CT
92%
294
Hypointense on T1-weighted MRI
95%
304
Ill-defined borders
85%
272
Pancreatic duct dilatation
78%
250
Hypoenhancement in all phases
88%
282
Vascular invasion
45%
144
Lymph node involvement
60%
192
Hypoechoic mass with irregular margins on EUS
90%
288
Table 4 Imaging features of intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms
Imaging feature
Percentage
Number of cases
Cystic lesions communicating with pancreatic duct
100%
75
Mural nodules
60%
45
Main pancreatic duct dilatation
65%
49
Enhancement of mural nodules on contrast-enhanced CT/MRI
55%
41
Table 5 Imaging features of neuroendocrine tumors
Imaging feature
Percentage
Number of cases
Hyperenhancement in the arterial phase
80%
40
Well-defined borders
90%
45
Heterogeneous enhancement in larger tumors (> 2 cm)
60%
30
Calcifications
25%
12
Hyperintense on T2-weighted MRI
85%
42
Restricted diffusion on MRI
90%
45
Table 6 Association between imaging features and pathological types
Imaging feature
PDAC
IPMN
NET
P value
Ill-defined borders
85%
10%
10%
< 0.001
Hypoenhancement
88%
5%
15%
< 0.001
Cystic components
15%
100%
10%
< 0.001
Arterial hyperenhancement
5%
15%
80%
< 0.001
Pancreatic duct dilatation
78%
65%
15%
< 0.001
Table 7 Interobserver agreement for imaging features
Imaging feature
Agreement measure
Value
95%CI
Tumor size
ICC
0.92
0.90-0.94
Tumor margin
κ
0.85
0.81-0.89
Enhancement pattern
κ
0.79
0.75-0.83
Vascular invasion
κ
0.88
0.84-0.92
Lymph node involvement
κ
0.82
0.78-0.86
Citation: Luo YG, Wu M, Chen HG. Retrospective analysis of pathological types and imaging features in pancreatic cancer: A comprehensive study. World J Gastrointest Oncol 2025; 17(1): 99153