Advanced 3-D imaging for the evaluation of pancreatic cancer with multidetector CT.

Pancreatic cancer remains the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death. Surgery is the only option for cure. Multidetector computed tomography (CT) and advanced postprocessing techniques, can provide solutions for difficult problems in diagnosing and staging disease, and can aid radiologists in communicating findings to surgeons and oncologists. Multiplanar reformats can provide additional information on involvement of the portal vein, hepatic artery, and common bile duct. Maximum intensity projection (MIP) images and volume rendered images can aid in identification of important vascular variants. MIP images can show the relationship of tumor to the pancreatic duct or biliary tree. Curved reformatted images can show the relationship of tumor to the pancreatic duct or vascular structures.