Sensitivity of Pre-Contrast Multiphase versus Conventional Liver MRI in Diagnosing Hepatic Hemangioma

Abstract

Hepatic hemangioma (HH) can be diagnosed noninvasively via dynamic contrast enhancement computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or ultrasonography. Diagnosis HH is based on imaging features such as early arterial phase enhancement and persistence enhancement on portal or delayed phase. However, differentiating small or atypical hemangiomas from other hepatic masses using these imaging methods maybe be difficult, especially in patients with a medical history of malignant disease. Another challenge in clinical practice is when patients with acute or chronic renal insufficiency, use MRI contrast agent gadolinium (Gd) with the risk of nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. Differentiating hemangioma from its mimickers on preoperative imaging studies is of critical importance. Our study compared the diagnostic sensitivity of pre-contrast multiphase and conventional liver MRI. Total 80 patients with HH were participate to our study retrospectively. Imaging was performed using pre-contrast multiphase and conventional liver MRI methods. The size of the nodule/mass to be evaluated was ≥1 cm. All patients MRI images were obtained and classified into two groups based on the acquisition parameters. The first group with pre-contrast multiphase MRI sequences, and the second group of conventional liver MRI methods included pre-contrast multiphase MRI sequences, contrast-enhanced tri-phase sequences. The study was reviewed and analyzed by two independence gastrointestinal radiologists, who were blinded to the examination and follow-up study results. The diagnostic sensitivity was compared between pre-contrast multiphase MRI sequences only and conventional liver MRI sequences methods. Based on the observation of two gastrointestinal radiologists, our results showed mean sensitivity of 90.0% and 97.5% for pre-contrast multiphase MRI and conventional liver MRI, respectively. Pre-contrast multiphase MRI sequence methods may be reliably applied in the diagnosis of HH.