Contrast-enhanced Diffusion-weighted MRI to Detect Liver Metastases in Patients With Pancreatic Cancer

Given the dismal prognosis of pancreatic cancer, detecting liver metastases early can avoid inappropriate therapy with the associated substantial risks, long-term hospital admissions and high costs, but without survival benefit. The current standard of diagnostic workup with contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) has a poor sensitivity (38-76%) for the detection of liver metastases. As more sophisticated and expensive treatment options emerge, better staging of pancreatic cancer is needed to avoid unnecessary procedures and select the most appropriate treatment strategy. New imaging modalities are available, but their value in staging of pancreatic cancer has not been evaluated yet. Therefore prospective imaging studies are necessary. The main aim of this study is to determine the diagnostic accuracy of contrast-enhanced diffusion-weighted MRI (CE-DW-MRI) in the detection of liver metastases in patients with pancreatic cancer compared to a reference standard of histopathology and follow up imaging. The study is an international, multicenter prospective cohort study (inclusion of patients until 138 patients with liver metastases are included, with a total maximum of 465 patients). Patients with pancreatic cancer will undergo additional CE-DW-MRI within two weeks from the CECT. CECT and CE-DW-MRI will be read independently by two radiologists. Suspected liver lesions on CECT and/or CE-DW-MRI will be biopsied to obtain histopathology as reference standard. For liver lesions without histopathologic proof of metastases a paired follow-up CECT and CE-DW-MRI serve as a composite reference standard. Pancreatic resection will be pursued in patients without proven liver or distant metastases. Patients with locally advanced or metastatic disease will be offered palliative treatment. Follow up CECT and CE-DW-MRI will be performed in all patients at 3, 6, and 12 months.