Role of MRI in characterization of hypervascular hepatic focal lesions in cirrhotic patients

Abstract

Hepatic focal lesions may be benign or malignant and some of the hypervascular focal lesions may be benign. Therapy requires an accurate diagnosis, which in turn relies primarily on appropriate imaging . Triphasic CT was believed to be the standard in evaluating the hepatic focal lesions together with alpha fetoprotein but unfortunately, not all cases with HCC having high alpha fetoprotein & not all cases having typical imaging criteria of HCC by Triphasic CT scan & also not all lesions are detected by US or are seen in the dynamic CT study. Biopsy of all lesions detected with MRI in the setting of liver cirrhosis would be impractical, extremely difficult, if not impossible, and likely to be of low yield also distinguishing between HCC and benign hypervascular lesions such as flash filling hemangiomas & pseudo lesions remain a major challenge in management of patients at risk for developing hepatocellular carcinoma. MRI is the most sensitive modality in d