Comparison Of Imaging Diagnosis Of Primary Hepatic Carcinoma Using Color Doppler Ultrasound And Contrast-enhanced Ultrasound

Objective: To evaluate the value of definitive diagnosis applying the two methods for Primary Hepatic Carcinoma (PHC). Methods: 42 patients with PHC were detected compared with Color Doppler Ultrasound(US) and Contrast-enhanced Ultrasound. Conventional liver ultrasonography were performed to characterize focal liver lesions including the location, size,shape,number,echo property and blood flow pattern within a suitable scanning cross-section and injecting the contrast agent,while observing enhancement of the quite characteristic features in lesions. The different dynamic sonograms from the three enhanced scan phases, including the arterial, the portal venous and the delayed vascular phase, were recorded respectively. Results: Sensitivity, Specificity, false negative rate, false positive rate, agreement rate, Predictive value of Positive Test(PVPT), Predictive value of Negative Test, (PVNT), Yourdon's index, positive Likelihood ratio(+LR), negative Likelihood ratio(+LR) of ultrasonic and contrast-enhanced ultrasonic Imaging Diagnosis of PHC were 78.5%,97.6%; 71.1%,95.6%;21.4%,2.4%;28.9%,4.4%; 74.7%,96.5%; 71.7%,95.3%; 78.0%,97.7%; 0.50,0.93; 2.72,22.2; 0.03,0.30 respectively.The results showed that the difference were significant among them respectively (P<0.05). Conclusion: Color Doppler sonography was the preferred screening method for focal liver lesions disease because of the inherent advantages but it suffered relatively poor sensitivity and specificity compared with other imaging techniques. The new ultrasonography contrast agent,SonoVue, can enhance the display of brachytely blood and miniblood in liver tumor. The advent of micro bubble contrast agents increased both sensitivity and specificity dramatically. Contrast enhanced US could improve the detection of PHC. The ability of contrast US to characterize focal liver lesions may well be superior to that of conventional US. Contrast-enhanced US could provide us with crucial diagnostic information that was completely occult to conventional sonography imaging techniques. Therefore, contrast-enhanced ultrasonic was valuable for further clinical application.