Clinical Trials Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 21, 2017; 23(43): 7765-7775
Published online Nov 21, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i43.7765
Application of superb microvascular imaging in focal liver lesions
Meng-Na He, Ke Lv, Yu-Xin Jiang, Tian-An Jiang
Meng-Na He, Ke Lv, Yu-Xin Jiang, Department of Ultrasound, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100730, China
Tian-An Jiang, Department of Ultrasound, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310000, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: He MN, Lv K, and Jiang YX designed the research; He MN and Lv K performed the research; Jiang TA contributed new reagents or analytic tools and analyzed the data; He MN wrote the paper.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the ethical committee of Peking Union Medical College Hospital.
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was provided by each patient before examination.
Conflict-of-interest statement: This article has no conflict of interests to disclose.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: 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/
Correspondence to: Yu-Xin Jiang, MD, Department of Ultrasound, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100730, China. jiangyuxinxh@163.com
Telephone: +86-10-69155494 Fax: +86-10-69155494
Received: August 13, 2017
Peer-review started: August 15, 2017
First decision: August 30, 2017
Revised: September 14, 2017
Accepted: September 19, 2017
Article in press: September 19, 2017
Published online: November 21, 2017
Abstract
AIM

To explore the ability of superb microvascular imaging (SMI) in differential diagnosis of focal liver lesions (FLLs) and to compare SMI morphology findings to those of color Doppler ultrasound and enhanced imaging.

METHODS

Twenty-four patients with 31 FLLs were included in our study, with diagnoses of hemangioma (HE) (n = 17), hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (n = 5), metastatic lesions (n = 5), primary hepatic lymphoma (n = 1), focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) (n = 2), and adenoma (n = 1). Nine lesions were pathologically diagnosed, and 22 lesions were radiologically confirmed, all of which were evaluated by at least two types of enhanced imaging techniques. All patients had undergone SMI. Patients were divided into subgroups based on pathological and radiological diagnoses to analyze SMI manifestations. We also compared the SMI manifestations of the most common malignant FLLs (HCCs and metastatic lesions) with those of the most common benign FLLs (HEs).

RESULTS

HEs were classified into three SMI subgroups: diffuse dot-like type (n = 6), strip rim type (n = 8), and nodular rim type (n = 3). The sizes of the three types of HEs were significantly different (P = 0.00, < 0.05). HCCs were classified into two subgroups: diffuse honeycomb type (n = 2) and non-specific type (n = 3). Four of the metastatic lesions were the strip rim type, and the other metastatic lesion was the thick rim type, which is the same as that of lymphoma. FNH was described as a spoke-wheel type, and adenoma as a diffuse honeycomb type. The SMI types of HCCs and metastatic lesions were significantly different from those of HEs (P = 0.048, < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

SMI technology enables microvascular evaluation of FLLs without using any contrast agent. For HEs, lesion size may affect SMI performance. SMI is able to provide useful information for differential diagnosis of HCCs and metastatic lesions from HEs.

Keywords: Primary hepatic lymphoma, Hemangioma, Color doppler ultrasound, Focal liver lesions, Superb microvascular imaging

Core tip: We utilized a novel ultrasound technique, superb microvascular imaging (SMI), to assess the microvascular morphology of focal liver lesions to provide additional diagnostic information. The focal liver lesions consisted of hemangiomas, hepatocellular carcinomas, metastatic lesions, primary hepatic lymphoma, focal nodular hyperplasia, and adenoma. We also compared SMI manifestations to color Doppler ultrasound and enhanced imaging features.