MR imaging for predicting the recurrence of pancreatic carcinoma after surgical resection

Objective: To study the relationship of characteristics of pancreatic carcinoma on MR imaging to tumor recurrence time after surgical resection. Materials and methods: Twenty-seven patients with pancreatic carcinoma were followed up at least 2 years after surgical resection of the tumor. All patients had MR imaging within 1 month before surgery. The tumor's size, signal intensity, local and vascular invasion, abdominal lymphadenopathy on MR imaging and the positive surgical margin were noted. The results from MR imaging were compared with the duration after surgery until tumor recurrence and with the positive surgical margin. Results: 59% of patients had various degree of extrapancreatic invasion. The tumor recurrence times were, respectively, 24 ± 21 months and 26 ± 29 months in patients with and without vascular invasion (P = 0.79). The combination of vascular with local invasion showed a correlation to the time of tumor recurrence (r = -0.34; P < 0.05). Patients with positive surgical margins had a higher local invasion score on MR imaging and a shorter recurrence time than those with negative surgical margins. The number and size of lymph nodes were not related with tumor recurrence time. Conclusion: MR imaging was useful for predicting the recurrence of pancreatic carcinoma after surgical resection. Local invasion associated with and without vascular invasion on MR imaging was the indicator for the tumor recurrence.