Contrast-enhanced ultrasound and MRI in post-treatment evaluation of hepatocellular carcinoma after TACE / 中华肝胆外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To study the use of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CE-US) and contrast-enhanced MRI(CE-MRI) in evaluation of therapeutic effect of transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).Methods:A retrospective study was conducted on 60 patients with HCC (with 114 lesions), who were treated with TACE in Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University from January 2018 to December 2018. There were 53 males and 7 females, age ranged from 47 to 84 (mean age 61.9) years. CE-US, CE-MRI and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) were performed in all these patients within one week after TACE. Using DSA as the gold standard, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy in the detection of residual lesions were compared between the two imaging methods. The consistency of results between CE-US and CE-MRI was analyzed.Results:CE-MRI and CE-US showed presence of active tumor foci (residual and/or recurrent lesion) in 78 lesions, and complete inactivation of HCC foci in 26 lesions. Ten lesions were diagnosed as active foci by CE-MRI, which were missed by CE-US. The diagnostic accuracy of CE-MRI was 100.0% (114/114), which was significantly better than the 91.2% (104/114) of CE-US ( P<0.05). The Kappa value between CE-US and CE-MRI was 0.781. The diagnostic coincidence between CE-MRI and CE-US was quite high. Among small lesions of less than 5 cm, the diagnostic accuracy of CE-MRI was 100.0% (78/78), which was significantly better than the 88.5% (69/78) of CE-US ( P<0.05). In large lesions of greater than 5 cm, the diagnostic accuracy of CE-MRI was comparable to that of CE-US. The difference was not significant ( P>0.05). The sensitivity of CE-MRI in detection of active lesions was higher than that of CE-US, and the specificity of the two imaging methods was consistent. The Kappa value between CE-US and CE-MRI was 0.747 for small lesions of less than 5cm, and 0.873 for large lesions of greater than 5 cm. The diagnostic coincidence between CE-MRI and CE-US was quite high. Conclusion:CE-MRI and CE-US can both be used as reliable imaging methods for evaluating the therapeutic effect of TACE for HCC.