ABSTRACT

Objective:

We aim to determine the volume changes of the pancreas after gastrectomy by using volumetric computed tomography (CT) measurements.

Methods:

Thirteen patients (8 men, 5 women, age range: 42 y - 76 y) who were diagnosed with gastric cancer and underwent gastrectomy (2 subtotal, 11 total) were included in this retrospective study. Pancreatic volumes were measured in preoperative (Pvolpre) and postoperative (3rd month (Pvolis,FU), 7- 11th month (Pvol2ndFU), and 18-60,h month (Pvol3rdFU) follow-up) contrast- enhanced CT examinations. To calculate the pancreatic volume, first, we manually drew the outermost margins of the pancreas and cut the volume, then we used a threshold method to exclude fat densities that infiltrated the pancreas. We used the Shapiro -Wilk test for normality, Levene test for homogeneity and one-way ANOVA test for comparing multiple groups. The significance level of 0.05 is

Results:

Pancreatic volumes decreased significantly within the 3rd month after the surgery in all of the patients (Pvolpre: 87,6 cc, PvolistFU: 60,4 cc, p-0.044). The differences in the pancreas volumes between first, second and third follow-up examinations were not significant (p > 0.05 for

Conclusion:

This study demonstrated that pancreas volume significantly decreases after gastrectomy and the decrease could be well documented with volumetric CT. The decrease in the volume is more evident in the 3rd month follow up period. A radiologist should be aware of an expected decrease in the volume of the pancreas in the follow-up after gastrectomy.