Mirko D’Onofrio Department of Radiology University Hospital G.B. Rossi University of Verona Verona, Italy

Contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) improves the accuracy of ultrasound (US) in the study of pancreatic lesion. The use of CEUS leads to a better characterization of pancreatic tumors.

CEUS takes advantage from its peculiar features:

• first, it has a high-contrast and spatial resolution;
• second, it uses microbubbles, a blood-pool contrast medium that allows to visualize the vascularization;
• and third, it allows the visualization of only the enhanced phase by canceling the background tissue signal and permits dynamic observations of the same plane, enabling tumor enhancement to be followed-up clearly.

Therefore, CEUS is a sensitive imaging method for evaluating the vascularization of pancreatic masses.