Modern diagnostics for suspected pancreatic tumors

This review on suspected tumors essentially focuses on malignant ductal adenocarcinoma of the head of the pancreas. Men are more often affected than women (ratio 2: 1). The incidence in Germany is approximately 10-15 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and is generally increasing. The only potentially curative therapy for adenocarcinoma of the pancreas is surgical R0 resection; however, currently only approximately 20 % of patients are potentially resectable at the time of diagnosis and even after successful resection the long-term 5-year survival of approximately 20 % is soberingly poor. In total only 5 % of patients with the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer survive longer than 5 years. It is therefore a special challenge to make an early diagnosis. Likewise, the differential diagnosis of patients with pre-existing chronic pancreatitis is a special difficulty in the diagnostics because these patients very often also have an enlarged pancreas head. A third core question is the surgical resectability. This article describes the technical principles of the most commonly used diagnostic tools endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET)/CT and elucidates theit advantages and limitations.