Analysis of CT and MRI imaging features of ectopic pancreas

作者：Simiao Chen, Guangwen Chen · 发表于：Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.21037/qims-2026-1-0067 · 研究领域：Gastrointestinal disorders and treatments、Pancreatitis Pathology and Treatment、Intestinal Malrotation and Obstruction Disorders

Background: Ectopic pancreas (EP) is a rare congenital anomaly that is often difficult to diagnose preoperatively due to its nonspecific clinical manifestations and imaging overlap with other gastrointestinal subepithelial lesions. Several characteristic imaging findings have been reported; however, the quantitative imaging features of EP remain insufficiently investigated. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize the clinical and imaging manifestations of EP, summarize its computed tomography (CT) features, quantitatively compare CT attenuation values between EP and native pancreas across different imaging phases, and explore phase-specific quantitative differences that may provide additional imaging information for EP characterization. Available magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings were also analyzed descriptively for supplementary illustration. Methods: The clinical and imaging data of 17 patients with surgically confirmed EP were retrospectively reviewed. All patients underwent non-contrast CT, 13 underwent triphasic contrast-enhanced CT, and two underwent non-contrast MRI. The imaging characteristics of benign-appearing lesions representing EP tissue were evaluated, and exploratory qualitative and quantitative comparisons were performed between the EP lesions and the native pancreatic tissue. Results: 95.46±7.34 HU, corrected P=0.002]; however, no statistically significant differences were observed during the venous or delayed phases. In the exploratory analysis,...