Evaluation of therapeutic efficacy of radiofrequency ablation on hepatic cancer: a preliminary study using superb microvascular imaging / 中华肝胆外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To study the predictive value of superb microvascular imaging(SMI) in evaluating therapeutic efficacy of hepatic cancer treated by percutaneous radiofrequency ablation(PRFA).Methods:From Feb 2017 to Feb 2018, 55 patients (male 31, female 24, age range 37-68 years, mean age 56years) with 72 hepatic carcinoma lesions (length 21.3-45.6 mm, average 31.2 mm) were detected by SMI and contrast-enhanced CT(CECT)before PRFA. One month after treatment, more than two imaging examinations (CECT, CEMR, ultrasonic imaging) were used as the "gold standard" to evaluate the complete ablation rates. Consistency between the SMI grading and the arterial phase enhancement of CECT was analyzed by the Kappa-test.Results:Before PRFA, SMI showed 12 lesions (16.7%) to be in grade Ⅰ, 28 lesions (38.9%) in grade Ⅱ and 32 lesions (44.4%) in grade Ⅲ. The arterial phase of CECT showed 37 lesions (51.4%) to have no obvious enhancement and 35 lesions (48.6%) to have obvious enhancement. Consistency analysis showed that there was a high consistency between SMI and CECT(Kappa=0.861, P<0.001). The higher the SMI grading, the more obvious the enhancement on CECT. The complete ablation rates of the grade Ⅰ, grade Ⅱ and grade Ⅲ lesions were 100%(12/12), 92.9%(26/28) and 71.9%(23/32), respectively. The complete ablation rate of the lesions in grade Ⅲ was significantly lower than that in grade Ⅰ and grade Ⅱ (both P<0.05). Conclusion:SMI showed a good consistency with CECT in evaluating the blood flow signals of hepatic cancer, SMI grading could be used in predicting the therapeutic efficacy of hepatic cancer treated by PRFA.