Utility of preoperative dynamic magnetic resonance imaging of the pancreas in diagnosing tumor-forming pancreatitis that mimics pancreatic cancer: report of a case.

The differential diagnosis of pancreatic carcinoma and tumor-forming pancreatitis remains difficult, and this situation can cause serious problems because the management and prognosis of these two focal pancreatic masses are entirely different. We herein report a case of tumor-forming pancreatitis that mimics pancreatic carcinoma in an 80-year-old woman. Computed tomography showed a solid mass in the head of the pancreas, and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography showed a complete obstruction of the main pancreatic duct in the head of the pancreas. Dynamic contrastenhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) demonstrated a time-signal intensity curve (TIC) with a slow rise to a peak (1 min after the administration of the contrast material), followed by a slow decline at the pancreatic mass, indicating a fibrotic pancreas. Under the diagnosis of tumor-forming pancreatitis, the patient underwent a segmental pancreatectomy instead of a pancreaticoduodenectomy. The histopathology of the pancreatic mass was chronic pancreatitis without malignancy. The pancreatic TIC obtained from dynamiccontrast MRI can be helpful to differentiate tumor-forming pancreatitis from pancreatic carcinoma and to avoid any unnecessary major pancreatic surgery.