Therapeutic response assessment of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation for pancreatic cancer: Utility of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS)

Purpose: To investigate the utility of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in the assessment of the therapeutic response to high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation for pancreatic cancer. Material and methods: 28 patients (11 female, 17 male, mean age 66 years, range 47 – 82) with pancreatic cancer (mean 3.5 cm, range 2.2 – 6.6 cm; mean 17.7 cm3, range 3.2 – 60.6 cm3) were treated with ultrasound-guided HIFU. All patients underwent CEUS and contrast-enhanced MRI (CEMRI) before and after HIFU. Following HIFU, CEUS and CEMRI were performed after 6 weeks (n = 17) and 3 (n = 15), 6 (n = 7), 9 (n = 3) and 12…