Endoscopic Ultrasound Elastography in the Diagnosis of Pancreatic Cancer

Abstract

Palpation continues to be of great value in modern medicine, both practiced by doctors and as a technique for selfexamination. But, palpation is limited to a few accessible organs, and the interpretation of the information sensed by the fingers is highly subjective. Recently, elastography has emerged as an option in several commercial ultrasound systems, and is starting to prove clinically valuable in many areas, particularly for example in assisting breast cancer diagnosis, 1 in guiding minimally invasive treatment of prostate cancer,2 or assessing liver fibrosis in diffuse hepatopathies by the transabdominal approach.