Preoperative assessment of peripheral vascular invasion of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma based on high-resolution MRI

OBJECTIVES: Preoperative imaging of vascular invasion is important for surgical resection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). However, whether MRI and CT share the same evaluation criteria remains unclear. This study aimed to compare the diagnostic accuracy of high-resolution MRI (HR-MRI), conventional MRI (non-HR-MRI) and CT for PDAC vascular invasion. METHODS: Pathologically proven PDAC with preoperative HR-MRI (79 cases, 58 with CT) and non-HR-MRI (77 cases, 59 with CT) were retrospectively collected. Vascular invasion was confirmed surgically or pathologically. The degree of tumour-vascular contact, vessel narrowing and contour irregularity were reviewed respectively. Diagnostic criteria 1 (C1) was the presence of all three characteristics, and criteria 2 (C2) was the presence of any one of them. The diagnostic efficacies of different examination methods and criteria were evaluated and compared. RESULTS: HR-MRI showed satisfactory performance in assessing vascular invasion (AUC: 0.87–0.92), especially better sensitivity (0.79–0.86 vs. 0.40–0.79) than that with non-HR-MRI and CT. HR-MRI was superior to non-HR-MRI. C2 was superior to C1 on CT evaluation (0.85 vs. 0.79, P = 0.03). C1 was superior to C2 in the venous assessment using HR-MRI (0.90 vs. 0.87, P = 0.04) and in the arterial assessment using non-HR-MRI (0.69 vs. 0.68, P = 0.04). The combination of C1-assessed HR-MRI and C2-assessed CT was significantly better than that of CT alone (0.96 vs. 0.86, P = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS: HR-MRI more accurately assessed PDAC vascular invasion than conventional MRI and may contribute to operative decision-making. C1 was more applicable to MRI scans, and C2 to CT scans. The combination of C1-assessed HR-MRI and C2-assessed CT outperformed CT alone and showed the best efficacy in preoperative examination of PDAC. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12885-023-11451-8.