Breath-hold MR cholangiopancreatography with a long-echo-train fast spin-echo sequence and a surface coil in chronic pancreatitis

PURPOSE

To assess heavily T2-weighted breath-hold magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) for imaging the pancreatic duct in patients with chronic pancreatitis.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Thirty-nine patients with chronic pancreatitis were examined with a breath-hold fast spin-echo (FSE) sequence employing an echo train length of 32 and with a surface coil. Results were compared with those of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP).

RESULTS

MRCP showed the head, body, and tail of the pancreatic duct well in 79%, 64%, and 53% of cases, respectively. Agreement between MRCP and ERCP was 83%-92% in cases of ductal dilatation, 70%-92% in cases of ductal narrowing, and 92%-100% in cases of filling defects. Interobserver variation was low (kappa > 0.5) for most findings.

CONCLUSION

Breath-hold MRCP with an FSE technique depicts the pancreatic duct well in patients with chronic pancreatitis and demonstrates narrowing, dilatation, and filling defects with moderate to high accuracy.

[Breath hold MR cholangio-pancreatography (MRCP) using long echo train length fast spin echo sequence in combination with surface coil]

To test the feasibility of MR cholangio-pancreatography (MRCP) using long echo train length (32) fast spin echo sequence in combination with shoulder surface coil, 20 patients who had had ERCP were examined. Good correlations were acquired between the findings obtained by two modalities in terms of ductal strictures, dilatations and intraductal lesions. MRCP was considered to be an examination of choice in various kinds of pathologies affecting biliary duct as well as pancreatic duct for its non-invasiveness and reasonable image quality.