Search

The objective of our study was to compare diagnostic performance of visual and quantitative analysis for the characterization of liver tumors insonated at low transmit power after microbubble contrast agent injection.This series comprised 166 liver tumors (1-5 cm in diameter) in 166 patients (99 men, 67 women; mean age +/- SD, 58 +/- 11 years) scanned at low transmit power (mechanical index: 0.1-0.14) after sulfur hexafluoride-filled microbubble injection. Digital cine clips recorded at the arterial phase (10-40 sec after contrast injection) and late phase (100-300 sec) were analyzed to characterize liver tumors as benign or malignant. Visual analysis was performed by three independent blinded reviewers who evaluated enhancement patterns at the arterial phase and subjective tumor conspicuity at the late phase. Quantitative analysis of videotape intensity (VI: gray-scale levels, 0-255) was performed to calculate objective tumor conspicuity at the late phase: (VI(tumor) - VI(liver)) / VI(liver).Characteristic enhancement patterns were observed in malignant tumors (peripheral rimlike) and benign tumors (peripheral nodular or central and spoke-wheel-shaped). Malignant (n = 95) versus benign (n = 71) tumors differed for subjective (median value: -1 vs 1, respectively) and objective conspicuity at the late phase (-0.6 vs 0.15, respectively; p = 0.001, Mann-Whitney U test) due to persistent microbubble uptake in benign tumors. Diagnostic performance of visual (odds ratio: reviewer 1 = 4.28, reviewer 2 = 10.18, reviewer 3 = 9.56) and quantitative (odds ratio: 89.33) analyses differed significantly in the characterization of liver tumors (p = 0.01, chi-square test).Quantitative analysis revealed higher diagnostic performance than visual analysis to characterize liver tumors insonated at low transmit power after microbubble contrast agent injection.

Successful TICs were recorded 159 out of 176 regions. Overall mean TPI were 38.9 12s (TA), 39.3 16.1s (TP), 38.4 13.3s (LN), and 37.6 7.5s (WM). The corresponding PI values in arbitrary units (AU) were 14.5 3.5AU, 16.5 4.9AU, 13.6 4.4 AU and 8.4 3.5 AU, respespectively. In cases with CT and/or MRI evidence of ischemic infarction, TICs showed prolongation of the TPI by an average of 7.0 3.6s and reduction of PI by an average of 8.6 2.6 AU in the affected regions as compared to the unaffected hemisphere for all regions except for lacunar infarction where the values were similar.