Normal pancreatic echogenicity: relation to structural unevenness and thickness in CT

The structure and size of the pancreas visualized in US and CT in 70 patients without any pancreatic disease were examined. About half of the pancreata were weakly echogenic and the other half highly echogenic. CT showed 80% of the weakly echogenic pancreata to be of homogeneous structure and 20% to be non-homogeneous and fatty. Of the highly echogenic pancreata, 25% were homogeneous and 75% non-homogeneous. Thin pancreata were more often highly echogenic than ones of normal thickness. In 13% of the cases the pancreas appeared thicker in the US examination than in CT, which was probably due to fact that ultrasound was not always able to distinguish the contour of the highly echogenic pancreas from the highly echogenic retroperitoneal fat surrounding it.