Quantitative study of blood supply in hepatic tumor with 16-slice spiral CT perfusion imaging

Objective To study the perfusion images of hepatic tumor, and to discuss the value of perfusion imaging with 16-slice spiral CT. Methods Total 78 patients with hepatic tumors performed perfusion imaging through 16-slice spiral CT, 66 of them had complete materials, including 44 primary or second malignant tumor, 19 angioma cavernosum, 1 inflamentary pseudo-tumor, 1 acute liver abcess and 1 simple cyst. Plain scan was performed firstly in order to localize central slices of lesions, then imaging of four and identical slices in central slices of hepatic tumors were performed using CT cine, producing 396 slices reconstruction images. These images were performed perfusion analysis using perfusion 3.0 software package with deconvolution method. The perfusion images and parameters such as HBF, HBV, MTT, PS, HAF and IRF TO were worked out with liver tumor mode. H test and Wilcoxon sign test were employed with SPSS 10.0 software package. Results The differences of HBF, HBV, MTT, HAF in the median (mean) among three groups were statistically significant, but PS and IRF TO were not statistically significant. Compared with normal liver (Group 1), HBF and HAF in malignant liver tumors (Group 2) and in angioma cavernosum (Group 3) increased significantly. The difference between Group 2 and Group 3 were not statistically significant. HBV in Group 2 increased significantly, however, the difference between Group 3 and Group 1 or Group 2 and Group 3 were not statistically. MTT decreased significantly, but the difference between Group 3 and Group 1 or Group 2 and Group 3 were not statistically. Conclusion Hepatic perfusion parameters and function maps measured with 16-slice spiral CT can quantitatively evaluate the blood supply, vessel permeability and proportion of hepatic artery. HBF and HAF in normal and tumorous liver are statistically significant. The malignant tumor can not be differentiated from angioma cavernosum and inflamentary pseudo-tumor with perfusion parameters such as HBF, HAF, HBV, MTT, PS and IRF TO. The differienttial diagnosis of hepatic tumors still need to combine with other imaging and clinical data. [