Investigation of factors affecting the degree of pancreatic visualization in ultrasound medical examination

Abstract

Factors affecting the visualization of the pancreas were examined in 42,789 subjects who underwent abdominal ultrasound examination. It was shown that the subjects’ age, male sex, and obesity were background factors that resulted in poor visualization of the pancreas (p<0.0001). The quality of pancreatic visualization became worse with aging in both males and females, and males showed poorer visualization of the pancreas in all age groups compared with females. The visualization of the pancreas in all Body Mass Index (BMI) subgroups was better for females than for males. The higher was the BMI, the poorer was the visualization of the pancreases in both males and females, and in the case of the BMI being over 25, there were only a few cases in which the pancreas visualization degree was good in both males and females, which was only 1.3%. There was no correlation between the number of years of experience of 18 examiners, the existence of an examiner qualification, and the visualization of the pancreas. However, the examiner’s visualization ability with one year of experience was lower than that of an examiner with more than three years of experience. One year of experience was insufficient to visualize the pancreas completely, and it seemed that experience of three years or more was necessary.