Hepatic Perfusion Disorders: A Pictorial Review of CT and MR Imaging

ABSTRACT

The liver has a unique dual blood supply through the portal vein and the hepatic artery. There are several communications between these two vessels under various conditions such as in hepatic tumors, trauma and liver cirrhosis, vascular compromise, among others. When vascular compromise occurs, this dual blood supply system can cause changes in the volume of blood flow in individual vessels or even in the direction of blood flow. With rapid image acquisition and increased resolution available in multislice CT and MR imaging, hepatic perfusion disorders are now more frequently encountered than in the past. Familiarity with imaging findings of these perfusion disorders will be helpful in characterizing focal hepatic lesions and will also help to avoid false positive diagnoses.