The term «FAST» (Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma) refers to real-time sonographic scanning of four regions for depiction of intra-peritoneal blood, which is generally performed at patient's admission. This method of examination, which does not include direct visualisation of parenchymal injuries, gives an immediate overview about a possible major intra-abdominal injury, especially in haemodynamically unstable patients who may require immediate treatment. The value of FAST in haemodynamically stable patients is more controversial since free intra (or retro-) peritoneal fluid is not always found in patients with blunt abdominal organ injuries, including potentially life-threatening injuries. Besides, the adequate training schedule of FAST operators (radiologist or non-radiologists) is subject to controversy; there is no consensus with regard to the number of examinations an operator performs under supervision before being entitled to perform a FAST examination alone. In spite of the fact that ultrasound achieves a poor sensitivity (40 to 55%) for the direct depiction of parenchymal injuries, a full abdominal sonographic examination, including solid organ analysis, may be useful for the triage of patients towards CT or clinical observation, when time constraint is not a major issue and CT not immediately available. Contrast-enhanced sonography can be useful to improve the detection of solid organ lesions and for the detection of vascular injuries, such as delayed splenic pseudoaneurysms. how the delineation of hypoxic target volumes within solid tumours could be used to optimise the treatment efficacy either by delivering optimal radiation doses into the resistant areas (dose painting) or by delivering an associated treatment for potentiating the efficacy of radiation treatments (by alleviation of tumour hypoxia). Imaging targets for tumour characterisation range from simple size measurements of the tumour to more specific imaging biomarkers on functional, cellular, metabolic and molecular levels. The biodistribution of these specific biomarkers should complement the morphological information acquired using traditional techniques. This lecture will discuss current and emerging imaging techniques for tumour characterisation: (1) Functional measures of tumour blood flow and vascular permeability can be made using MRI, CT and ultrasound. (2) Cellular imaging targets include measurements of water and fat content using MRI. Diffusion-weighted imaging can be used to estimate tumour cellularity, which may decrease following successful chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Emerging techniques allow tumour necrosis to be specifically probed. (3) Changes in the extracellular space can be used to characterise tumours; for example the majority of tumours are acidic when compared with the surrounding normal tissue and recent advances in PET and MRI have been used to detect tumour pH. (4) On the molecular level, cell surface expression of proteins and enzyme activity within the cell have been exploited as imaging biomarkers. PET-and MRI-labelled probes have been developed which can bind to these proteins or mimic endogenous tumour metabolites; for example, fluorodeoxyglucose is a PET-labelled analogue of glucose that is widely used in oncological imaging. In the future, functional and molecular imaging techniques will be used in conjunction with anatomical imaging methods to aid cancer diagnosis, as well as to detect early response to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. The most common pancreatic malignancy is ductal adenocarcinoma, with neuroendocrine tumours (NET), lymphoma and metastases being important differential diagnoses. Non-neoplastic pitfalls include focal pancreatitis and focal fatty infiltration. Multi-phasic hydro-MDCT is very effective in detection of hypoattenuating adenocarcinoma, with a sensitivity of up to 90%. In 5-11% of patients, isoattenuating cancers will only show indirect tumour signs (duct dilatation, contour deformity, or mass effect). MRI is a problem-solving tool in equivocal CT to depict small cancers. Best pulse sequences for tumour detection are T1w 2D-GRE fatsat, dynamic gadolinium-enhanced 3D-GRE fatsat and DWI. Important issues in cancer staging are vascular involvement (celiac trunk, SMA, SMV, portal vein), lymph nodes and liver metastases. 3D MDCT reformations (MIP, VRT, CPR) are helpful to demonstrate vascular invasion, although minimal invasion may elapse CT or MR imaging. NET tend to be hypervascular, which is best seen in the arterial phase. RCC metastases to the pancreas are not uncommon. They are typically hypervascular, mimicking NET at imaging. The most important non-neoplastic solid mass is focal pancreatitis. The duct-penetrating sign at MRCP helps to differentiate focal inflammation from cancer, although multimodality imaging including biopsy is often required to make a definitive diagnosis. Focal steatosis or lipoma is easily diagnosed by chemical shift imaging (T1w GRE in-and opposed-phase).