Following percutaneous interventions for malignant liver lesions, patients are ably assessed with a combination of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and perfusion-imaging software, according to the authors of a study published online September 25 in Ultraschall in der Medizin/European Journal of Ultrasound.
Radiologists and internists at the University of Regensburg in Germany reviewed the cases of 88 patients who had been treated with percutaneous ablation of 165 malignant liver lesions (108 hepatocellular carcinomas and 57 metastases).
Post-treatment, the patients were injected with sulfur hexafluoride microbubbles and imaged with ultrasound.
They were again assessed up to six months later, this time with contrast-enhanced CT or MRI.
Using commercially available perfusion software (Bracco’s VueBox), the researchers found “significant differences in all cases between the center compared to the margins for the main perfusion parameters,” lead author Isabel Wiesinger, MD, and colleagues report.
Further, all parameters—peak, wash-in and wash-out ratios alongside type of lesion and method of ablation—were significantly different between lesions treated successfully vs. those with recurrence, they write.
“A combination of CEUS with perfusion imaging enables critical assessment of successful treatment after percutaneous interventional procedures for a malignant liver lesion,” the authors conclude.
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