Patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are generally classified into four categories based on contrast-enhanced CT at diagnosis: resectable, borderline resectable, unresectable, and metastatic disease. In the initial grading and staging of PDAC, structured radiological templates are useful but limited, as there is a need to define the aggressiveness and microscopic disease stage of these tumours to ensure adequate treatment allocation. Quantitative imaging analysis allows radiomics and dynamic imaging features to provide information of clinical outcomes, and to construct clinical models based on radiomics signatures or imaging phenotypes. These quantitative features may be used as prognostic and predictive biomarkers in clinical decision making, enabling personalized management of advanced PDAC. Deep Learning and Convolutional Neural Networks also provide high level bioinformatics tools that can help define features associated with a given aspect of PDAC biology and aggressiveness, paving the way to define outcomes based on these features. Thus, the prediction of tumour phenotype, treatment response and patient prognosis may be feasible by using such comprehensive and integrated radiomics models. Despite these promising results, quantitative imaging is not ready for clinical implementation in PDAC. Limitations include the instability of metrics and lack of external validation. Large properly annotated datasets, including relevant semantic features (demographics, blood markers, genomics), image harmonization, robust radiomics analysis, clinically significant tasks as outputs, comparisons with gold standards (such as TNM or pretreatment classifications) and fully independent validation cohorts, will be required for the development of trustworthy radiomics and Artificial Intelligence solutions to predict PDAC aggressiveness in a clinical setting.

We report a case of small bowel obstruction in a 74-year-old woman presenting with abdominal pain due to the accidental swallowing of a snail shell. A diagnosis of obstruction was made by abdominal radiograph, and its etiology was found after abdominal CT was performed. This is an unusual case of small bowel obstruction due to a foreign body that was preoperatively diagnosed with imaging.

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Indications and outcomes of extended pancreatectomies have been recently appraised by the International Study Group for Pancreatic Surgery. However, no definitive conclusions have been drawn, particularly in the setting of neoadjuvant treatments. We present here a case of 53-year-old man diagnosed with a bulky adenocarcinoma of the tail of the pancreas and infiltrating the adjacent organs and the thoracic wall. The patient was sent to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and he underwent 12 cycles of FOLFIRINOX. Since a significant radiological response was observed after chemotherapy, the patient was scheduled for extended distal pancreatectomy with en bloc resection of the thoracic wall, in order to achieve a radical resection. The surgery is herein described with all technical details. The patient was discharged after an uneventful early post-operative course and subsequently readmitted for a late grade B post-operative pancreatic fistula, which was ultimately treated successfully. Pathology showed complete response. When performed in centers with ample experience in pancreatic surgery, extended pancreatic resections represent a viable curative option with acceptable surgical outcomes. In this setting, challenging tailored resections should be considered to achieve negative margins, particularly following maximized effective downstaging strategies.

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