Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 21, 2016; 22(43): 9562-9570
Published online Nov 21, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i43.9562
Evolution of incidental branch-duct intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms of the pancreas: A study with magnetic resonance imaging cholangiopancreatography
Rossano Girometti, Riccardo Pravisani, Sergio Giuseppe Intini, Miriam Isola, Lorenzo Cereser, Andrea Risaliti, Chiara Zuiani
Rossano Girometti, Lorenzo Cereser, Chiara Zuiani, Institute of Diagnostic Radiology, Department of Medical and Biological Sciences, University of Udine, University Hospital “S. Maria della Misericordia”, p.le S. Maria della Misericordia, 15-33100 Udine, Italy
Riccardo Pravisani, Sergio Giuseppe Intini, Andrea Risaliti, Clinical Surgery, Department of Medical and Biological Sciences, University of Udine, University Hospital “S. Maria della Misericordia”, p.le S. Maria della Misericordia, 15-33100 Udine, Italy
Miriam Isola, Department of Medical and Biological Sciences, University of Udine, p.le Kolbe, 1-33100 Udine, Italy
Author contributions: Girometti R and Intini SG designed the study; Cereser L and Zuiani C reviewed imaging examinations; Pravisani R and Risaliti A reviewed clinical data; Girometti R, Pravisani R and Isola M collected all imaging and clinical data, organizing databases; Isola M performed statistical analysis; all the authors interpreted the results; Girometti R wrote the paper; all the authors reviewed the paper.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethical Committee of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, Italy.
Informed consent statement: By Italian regulations (Determinazione Ministeriale 20. 03. 2008, Delibera del 15. 12. 2011 del Garante per la Protezione dei Dati personali) informed consent acquisition is waived for retrospective studies involving analysis of anonymized data.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Nothing to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Rossano Girometti, MD, Institute of Diagnostic Radiology, Department of Medical and Biological Sciences, University of Udine, University Hospital “S. Maria della Misericordia”, p.le S. Maria della Misericordia, via Colugna 50, 15-33100 Udine, Italy. rgirometti@sirm.org
Telephone: +39-432-559266 Fax: +39-432-559867
Received: July 19, 2016
Peer-review started: July 21, 2016
First decision: September 5, 2016
Revised: September 28, 2016
Accepted: October 27, 2016
Article in press: October 27, 2016
Published online: November 21, 2016
Processing time: 122 Days and 13.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Branch-duct intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms are a frequent incidental finding. The management of these lesions is challenging because of the need to balance low but concrete risk of developing malignancy over time versus costs of prolonged follow-up procedures. In this retrospective study, we showed high rate of imaging evolution (44.4%), with 8.3% of patients developing alert findings prompting further diagnostic steps, though there were no final diagnoses of malignancy. Since there were no clinical or imaging predictors of alert findings, our results suggest that prolonged follow-up is useful, but might be significantly delayed with minimal risk of missing malignancy.