Determination of Pancreatic Steatosis Prevalence and Correlation With High-risk Cyst Features

Pancreatic cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer mortality in Hong Kong and the seventh leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide. In 2020, approximately 496000 new cases of pancreatic cancers were diagnosed globally . Pancreatic cancer is a highly fatal cancer with a case-fatality rate of 94.0% globally. In Hong Kong, both the incidence and mortality of pancreatic cancer have increased over the past decade.

Due to the deep-seated location of pancreas, it is difficult to diagnose pancreatic cancer at an early stage, which in turn leads to delays in cancer treatment and poorer survival. Despite advances in oncologic treatment, the 5-year survival rate of metastatic pancreatic cancer remains poor (\~2.9%). As such, there has been growing interest to improve pancreatic cancer prevention and survival by:

1. reduction of modifiable risk factors (eg, cigarette smoking, obesity, diabetes), 2. screening for early detection of high-risk pre-malignant lesions in selected high-risks patients with strong family history of pancreatic cancer and/or certain germline mutations of pancreatic cancer susceptibility genes (eg, BRCA1, BRAC2, DNA mismatch repair genes in Lynch Syndrome, etc) by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or endoscopic ultrasound (EUS), and 3. surveillance of pre-malignant precursor lesions such as mucinous pancreatic cystic neoplasms (PCN) by imaging and/or EUS to identify high-risk neoplastic progression indicated for surgical resection.