ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the imaging features of primary clear cell carcinoma of liver and to assess the role of CT and MRI in the diagnosis of the disease. Methods Nineteen cases of primary liver clear cell carcinoma of liver were collected. All cases were confirmed by operation and pathology. Both pre-contrast and post-contrast scans with spiral CT were performed in 13 cases. MRI with T1WI, T2WI, and dynamic multi-phase contrast scanning were performed in 8 cases. Imaging findings in all cases were retrospectively reviewed. Results On pre-contrast CT scans, all 13 lesions appeared as hypodensity and among them irregular more hypodense region was found in 9 cases. On the arterial phase, all cases showed obvious enhancement, among which 9 cases were enhanced heterogeneously with central non-enhanced area.On the portal venous phase, 11 lesions were hypodense compared with normal live parenchyma and 2 lesions were isodense. The rim enhancement of tumor capsule was demonstrated in 3 cases. On MR T1WI, 5 of 8 were hypointense and 3 were slightly hyperintense. On MR T2WI, 5 of 8 cases were heterogeneously hyperintense, and 3 were iso-hypointense. On the MR arterial phase, marked enhancement was found in all 8 cases. On the portal venous phase and delayed phase, 7 of 8 cases were hypointense and 1 was isointense.The rim enhancement of tumor capsule was found in 2 cases. Conclusion CT and MRI can display the characteristic features of primary clear cell carcinoma of liver and can be helpful to improve the diagnostic accuracy.