COMPARISON OF DUAL PHASE HELICAL COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY AND COLOR DOPPLER SONOGRAPHY FOR DIAGNOSIS OF HEPATOCELLULAR CARCINOMA

Abstract

Because of high frequency of hepatocellular carcinomas so easy detection & evaluation is essential, consequently the prefeJTed CT technique for liver examination should combine a high sensitivity for lesion detection & good ability for lesion characterization to decide the best line of treatment either surgical or chemoembolsation.

Helical CT of the liver gives a high quality scan as a result of the ability to image the liver in a single breath hold. Lesion detection is aided by scanning during the peak of hepatic enhancement, by lack of respiratory misintegration, and by obtaining overlapping axial reconstruction. Because of these advantages, helical CT of the liver is the prefeJTed scanning mode for evaluation of hepatocellular carcinoma.

In addition, the fast data acquisition with spiral CT allows successive scanning of the entire liver at different phases after injection of contrast medium, thus creating the possibility of multiphase liver CT.

Biphasic spiral CT is a standardized CT procedure that allows imaging the entire liver in unenhanced, then enhanced (arterial & portal phases). It is designated to enable detection & evaluation of characters of HCC.