Pancreatic Tumors clinical trials

Contrast Enhanced Endoscopic Ultrasound for Vascular Involvement in Pancreatic Lesions

In the US, pancreas cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer related deaths. It was estimated to have taken 36,800 lives in 2010. Unfortunately, curing pancreatic cancer requires surgical removal. Surgical removal of the pancreas is associated with high morbidity and mortality, as well as high rates of complications. One way to aid surgeons in removing pancreatic tumors is by providing them with a good idea of where the tumor is located and what surrounding structures are involved. This currently happens through many different modalities of imaging; usually computed tomography (CT) and endoscopic ultrasound. Even with these forms of imaging (and sometimes others), surgeons will occasionally open a patient and find that the tumor cannot be removed due to its involvement with surrounding structures. One way to avoid potentially unnecessary procedures or to help a surgeon navigate this delicate procedure would be to provide more detailed information about the tumor. Several of the techniques currently used to image the body have rapidly advanced over recent years. Typical advancements come through better resolution of the images or contrast to enhance desired parts of the images. Ultrasound has not seen such a two pronged advance. Ultrasound has seen substantial advances in resolution to enhance picture quality, but contrast has not been used clinically to assess pancreatic masses whereas it is for cardiologists to use contrast to look at potential defects in the heart. The contrast that is used with ultrasound is different from that of CT scans. CT scanners use a dye that can be potentially hazardous. This dye can lead to serious kidney damage in some patients. Ultrasound contrast, on the other hand, is made of small micro bubbles filled with a harmless gas. Because of the way ultrasound works, these micro bubbles reflect the sound waves differently than the surrounding tissue and thus provide contrast between normal tissue and abnormal tissue. The contrast used in this study, Definity, and is the same contrast used by Cardiologists. The CE-EUS will be used for research purposes only and will not be used for any clinical decision making. The surgeon will be blinded to the results of the research CE-EUS. The investigators will compare the research pre-operative contrast enhanced endoscopic ultrasounds images with already completed standard-of-care CT scans, the actual pancreatic involvement seen in surgery and the pathology reports.