MRI of pancreatic metastases from renal cancer

Objective: Our goal was to describe the MR features of pancreatic metastases from renal cancer. Materials and Methods: Five patients with pancreatic metastases from renal cancer were imaged with MR. Imaging was performed on a 1.5 T MR imager using excitation-spoiled fat-suppressed T1-weighted SE images (all patients), T1-weighted spoiled GE images (all patients), T2-weighted fast SE (one patient) and excitation-spoiled fat-suppressed T2-weighted fast SE (one patient) images, serial postgadolinium spoiled GE images (all patients), and postcontrast excitation-spoiled fat-suppressed T1-weighted SE images (two patients). Results: Multiple pancreatic lesions (n = 6) were present in two patients, solitary tumors in two patients, and diffuse micronodular pancreatic enlargement in one patient. All lesions were hypointense compared to normal pancreas on T1-weighted fat-suppressed SE images. Lesions were high in SI on T2-weighted images in two of two patients. All lesions demonstrated enhancement on the immediate postgadolinium spoiled GE images with the smaller tumors (<1.5 cm, three individual and the micronodular tumors) showing diffuse enhancement and the larger tumors (>1.5 cm, five tumors) showing predominantly rim enhancement. Conclusion: Pancreatic metastases from renal cell carcinoma have distinctive MR features that include diffuse enhancement in small lesions and rim enhancement in large lesions on immediate postgadolinium images and high SI on T2-weighted images.