Contrast-enhanced ultrasonography in the characterization of focal liver lesions before microwave ablation therapy

Objective To assess the value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound(CEUS) in the differential diagnosis of focal liver lesions before microwave ablation.Methods One hundred and seven patients with 128 focal liver lesions underwent CEUS and color Doppler flow imaging(CDFI) before microwave ablation therapy.The diagnostic performance of CEUS and CDFI was compared with pathologic findings through biopsy.Results The sensitivity,specificity,positive and negative predictive value,accuracy of CEUS for diagnosing liver lesions was 98.35%(119/121),100%(7/7),100%(119/119),77.78%(7/9) and 98.44%(126/128),respectively,higher than those of CDFI(P0.001).According to CEUS,119 malignant lesions were treated with timely microwave ablation,while unnecessary microwave ablation was excluded for 7 benign lesions.Conclusion CEUS is useful in the characterization of focal liver tumors before microwave ablation,and is helpful to reduce the misdiagnosis and mistreatment of the patients.