Endoscopic Ultrasonography Diagnosis of Early Pancreatic Cancer

Early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer (PC) can improve patients’ prognosis. We aimed to investigate the utility of endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) for the early diagnosis of PC. This study included 64 patients with PC at an early stage treated at Onomichi General Hospital between January 2007 and January 2020. Diagnostic procedures included contrast computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography, EUS fine-needle aspiration, and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) for pancreatic juice cytology. The mean age was 71.3 years. In all, 32 patients were stage 0, and 32 were stage I. As for image findings, the main pancreatic duct (MPD) stenosis was detected in several cases, although CT and MRCP seldom detected tumors. EUS had a high detection rate for stage 0 tumor lesions. The median observation period was 3.9 years. In cases with stage 0, the 1 year and 5 year survival rates were 100% and 78.9%, respectively. In cases with stage I, the 1 year and 5 year survival rates were 96.4% and 66.7%, respectively. EUS has the highest sensitivity among all imaging modalities for detecting small pancreatic tumors. Cases with MPD dilation or stenosis, especially with tumors that cannot be identified on CT and MRI, should have EUS performed. In some cases, EUS was not able to detect any tumor lesions, and ERCP-based pancreatic juice cytology should be useful for pathological diagnosis.