Clinical value of contrast-enhanced harmonic endoscopic ultrasonography in differential diagnosis of pancreas and gall bladder mass

Abstract

Recent studies reveal that contrast enhanced harmonic endoscopic ultrasonography (CEH-EUS) is beneficial in differential diagnosis of malignant neoplasms of pancreas and gall bladder (GB) from benign mass in aspects of evaluation of microvasculature and real time perfusion. However, in Korea, CEH-EUS is not widely used as EUS is. Therefore, in this study, I aimed to prove the clinical value of CEH-EUS in differential diagnosis of pancreas and GB mass by direct comparing to that of conventional EUS. I reviewed sonographic images and medical information of 471 patients who underwent conventional EUS and CEH-EUS for diagnosis of pancreas and gall bladder mass at a single medical center; Severance Hospital, Seoul, Korea, between March 2010 and March 2016. For the pancreas solid mass, the enhancement pattern of CEH-EUS showed high sensitivity (82.0%) and specificity (87.9%) and the area under the ROC curve was higher than that of conventional EUS. However, for the GB mass, CEH-EUS was not superior to the conventional EUS.