Ultrasound scanning in patients with clinical suspicion of pancreatic cancer: a retrospective study.

A retrospective study was performed on all patients with clinical suspicion of a pancreatic cancer over a seven-month period. Diagnostic scans of the pancreas were obtained in 87% of the patients. Of 112 patients with a successful ultrasound study, 97 had adequate clinical or surgical follow up. The ultrasound examination was abnormal in 16 of 17 pancreatic cancer patients, yielding a positive predictive value of 84%. Most patients had distant spread at this time. The negative predictive value was 99%, sensitivity was 94%, specificity 96%. This study does nt suggest that ultrasound leads to an earlier diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. However, because the symptoms of the disease are common in the elderly, ultrasound allows reliable exclusion of this disease in a noninvasive way.