Initial Experience of Evaluating HCC Blood Supply before and after TACE Using CT Perfusion Imaging

Purpose: To investigate the blood perfusion changes of hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC) before and after transcatheter arterial chemoembolization(TACE).Materials and Methods: CT perfusion imaging(CTPI) was performed before treatment and one month after TACE for 21 HCC patients.Hepatic arterial perfusion(HAP),hepatic portal perfusion(HPP) and hepatic perfusion index(HPI) were measured in tumor tissue before and after TACE separately.Results: Before treatment,tumor tissue demonstrated homogeneous hyper-perfusion in 7 cases and inhomogeneous hyper-perfusion in 14 cases on HAP map.No blood perfusion was found in the necrotic lesions.On HPP map,hypo-perfusion in 20 cases and no blood perfusion in 1 case.After TACE,HAP and HPI were obviously decreased comparing with pre-TACE and HPP was no significant different.Complete filling in the lesions by lipiodol was found in 5 cases and partial filling in 16 cases.Blood perfusion was not found in the lipiodol filling area,but was presented in the residual lesions.Conclusion: CTPI offers a new method for evaluating the curative effect of TACE.