The Complementary Role of SPECT in the Diagnosis of Cavernous Hemangioma of the Liver

Cavernous hemangiomas are the most common benign tumors of the liver. Although their clinical course is usually uncomplicated, an accurate diagnosis may be important to exclude conditions that need treatment, (or to avoid an unnecessarily risky percutaneous biopsy). Although blood pool scintigraphy using planar gamma camera imaging is a reliable examination for the diagnosis of liver hemangiomas, it may fail to depict small, deeply seated lesions, and hence miss the diagnosis. Two cases are reported in which SPECT demonstrated delayed pooling in small, deep, space-occupying lesions, which were poorly seen on planar images, and therefore made a cavernous hemangioma the most likely diagnosis.