Diagnosis and imaging of chronic pancreatitis

Abstract

The insidious nature of disease taken into account, the majority of patients with chronic or malignant pancreatic disease present late in their course and even with early diagnosis, mortality rates of pancreatic cancer are high. In anticipation of a better understanding of the molecular biology and the epigenesis in the origin and progression of disease, benign and malignant as well, the most challenging items in the diagnosis and management reside at present in endoscopic and radiological pancreatic imaging. In these the diagnosis of early chronic pancreatitis, of early pancreatic cancer, the differentiation of a pancreatic mass in the setting of chronic pancreatitis and the accurate staging of potentially resectable pancreatic cancer with respect to the dorsal extension are of utmost importance. Focus in this book is on the diagnostic and imaging challenges of chronic pancreatitis and the differentiation with pancreatic cancer in an early stage. © 2009 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.