Granular pancreas is often used by doctors when examining a patient with ultrasound. This means that the patient's gland structure is different from normal, but one should not panic immediately if the doctor wrote "increased granularity" in the results of ultrasound diagnostics. This information is needed by the doctor who sent the patient for examination.
For a complete picture of the condition of the organ, the physician will analyze other data: patient complaints, clinical manifestations of pathology, results of biochemical and clinical analyzes. Only then it will be possible to determine the presence of the disease, for example, chronic pancreatitis, prescribe treatment and give recommendations on lifestyle and nutrition.
Normal is a homogeneous fine-grained internal pancreatic echostructure determined by ultrasound. The increased granularity of the pancreas may be one of the norm variants, moreover, such a picture is observed with ultrasound examinations on middle class devices. In some cases, the granular structure, along with the consolidation of the walls of the gallbladder and the intrahepatic ducts, can signal chronic inflammation and dystrophic changes in the organ caused by malnutrition and lifestyle. Inattention to this problem over time threatens the formation of gallstones, which clog the bile ducts and cause biliary colic.
As mentioned above, ideally the pancreas has a uniform fine-grained structure and resembles the liver according to echostructure. With age, its echogenicity may increase. Also, increased echogenicity is one of the signs of lipomatosis( structural changes in the body cells), which is most often diagnosed in people with diabetes mellitus.
Diffuse changes in the gland tissues are caused by a number of factors. The medium-grained or coarse-grained pancreatic echostructure detected during the ultrasound examination does not indicate the presence of organ disease. The expert can make definitive conclusions only on the basis of data of instrumental and laboratory researches, complaints and clinical displays. With a homogeneous structure, even distinct contours, uniform echogenicity, a clear delineation of internal departments and structures, the coarse-grained and medium-grained structure of the pancreas is the norm. Concerns should be caused by the heterogeneity of the structure, the increase or decrease in the size of the organ, fuzzy contours, and the presence of focal changes.