Can they distinquish the differenece between chronic pancreatits and pancreatic cancer on mri?

Tissue for diagnosis: Mri can give anatomic detail that will guide your health care team in making an opinion about pancreatic cancer. A piece of tissue from your pancreas, obtained at an endoscopic biopsy, or ct guided biopsy or surgery will give the pathologist the tissue needed for examination under the microscope. The pathologist makes the diagnosis with a sample of tissue.

Not reliably : In patients that have portions of the pancreas removed for chronic pancreatitis, a certain percentage will have cancer cells there. It would be impossible for an MRI to detect a few cells, but it may find larger cancerous rumors. You could see a general surgeon specializing in pancreatic disorders or heptobiliary diseases for a consultation regarding your case.

Dominant mass?: If there seems to be a dominant mass in pancreas that seems abnormal, you deserve to have tissue obtained and sent to the pathology team for diagnosis. Good luck.

Not accurately!: You need confirmation with tissue diagnosis. Preferred method is eus guided fine needle aspiration (fna) biopsy to be performed by an expert with higher success rate to get good diagnostic material. It should be interpreted by well trained cytopathologist who should be available for onsite intra-procedural adequacy evaluation (and to guide any special test if needed) to avoid risk of inadequate i.