الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most fatal cancers. Stage of the disease greatly affects the prognosis of the disease that makes early diagnosis crucial in the management of pancreatic cancers.
Conventional MRI with contrast enhancement is the routine MRI protocol, however contrast administration is invasive and time consuming in addition to the adverse effects of contrast. Also many cancer patients have already impaired renal functions.
With development of high field magnets and great advances in functional MRI, DWI is increasingly used as in the detection and characterization of abdominal tumors.
DW MRI in the pancreas is a new imaging technique. It has the advantage that it can be obtained without breath-holding, using respiratory triggered technique. It is simple and non invasive with no need to use contrast media and it provides information that reflects tissue cellularity which can be used in detection of tumor aggressiveness and response to tumor.
Regarding combined qualitative analysis of DWIs and quantitative analysis of ADC values, it was found that results of DW MRI are approaching that of contrast enhanced MRI not only in detecting pancreatic neoplasms but also in detection of vascular encasement, tumor necrosis and liver metastasis which are essential information for the clinician that reflects disease prognosis and treatment strategies. However, in view of limited number of cases and other limitations of the study larger studies are needed to confirm these results.
We recommend using DWI in conjunction to conventional imaging as a useful modality that aids in assessment of pancreatic neoplasms. In cases with contraindication to contrast administration DW MR imaging can be used as a reasonable alternative technique to contrast-enhanced imaging