Abstract
Three out of 14 patients with pancreatic carcinoma in situ had a high degree of fatty changes of the pancreatic parenchyma adjacent to the lesion, which were recognized on CT. All the lesions were present in the pancreatic body. In one patient, the cancerous lesion spread widely along the pancreatic duct and CT showed that in the other two patients, the lesions were mainly restricted to the branches with a slight advancement into the main pancreatic duct. CT showed widely distributed fatty change of the pancreatic body along the pancreatic duct with a widely spread cancerous lesion in one patient. The other two patients had local fatty changes of the pancreatic body on CT. Interaction of pancreatic carcinoma in situ and fatty change of pancreatic parenchyma remains unclear, however, we speculate that the Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor γ (PPARγ) plays a key role. Our three cases suggest that a high degree of fatty change of the pancreatic body could indicate pancreatic carcinoma in situ.
