Liu LP, Yu XL, Liang P, Dong BW. Characterization of primary hepatic carcinosarcoma by contrast-enhanced ultrasonography: A case report. World J Gastroenterol 2014; 20(6): 1630-1634 [PMID: 24587642 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v20.i6.1630]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Li-Ping Liu, MD, Department of Ultrasound, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, No. 13, Jiefang Nanlu, Taiyuan 030001, Shanxi Province, China. liuliping1600@sina.com
Research Domain of This Article
Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Li-Ping Liu, Department of Ultrasound, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan 030001, Shanxi Province, China
Li-Ping Liu, Xiao-Ling Yu, Ping Liang, Bao-Wei Dong, Department of Interventional Ultrasound, Chinese People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China
Author contributions: Liu LP performed contrast-enhanced ultrasound examination and collected case data; Liu LP and Dong BW wrote the manuscript; Yu XL and Liang P revised the manuscript; all authors approved the version to be published.
Supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81171361
Correspondence to: Li-Ping Liu, MD, Department of Ultrasound, First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, No. 13, Jiefang Nanlu, Taiyuan 030001, Shanxi Province, China. liuliping1600@sina.com
Telephone: +86-351-4638628 Fax: +86-351-4639010
Received: September 20, 2013 Revised: October 20, 2013 Accepted: December 3, 2013 Published online: February 14, 2014
Abstract
Primary hepatic carcinosarcoma is a rare tumor and is comprised of a mixture of carcinomatous and sarcomatous elements. We present a case of primary carcinosarcoma of the liver in a 59-year-old woman, which was confirmed by pathology following surgical resection. Using contrast-enhanced ultrasonography, the tumor showed peripheral nodular hyperenhancement in the arterial phase with two feeding arterial vessels and a large internal non-enhancing portion in the center. The peripheral nodular portion of the tumor showed hypoenhancement in the later phase.
Core tip: Primary hepatic carcinosarcoma is a rare tumor and is comprised of a mixture of carcinomatous and sarcomatous elements, easily misdiagnosed as other types of tumor or an abscess. This is the first report on the contrast-enhanced ultrasonography characteristics of primary hepatic carcinosarcoma.
