USE OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL COLOR POWER DOPPLER IN IMAGING OF LIVER CANCER

Abstract

We aimed to assess the role of three-dimensional color power Doppler (3D-CPD) imaging in diagnosis ofliver cancer. First of all, we performed 2D- and 3D-CPD imaging on 96 cases of liver tumors with a total of106 lesions to examine the characteristics of the vascular distribution patterns of the tumors, and in turn,compare the sensitivity and specificity. Also, with the use of three-dimensional volumetric measurement,we calculated the volume of tumors, quantity of intra-tumor blood vessels, and the ratio of the quantityof intra-tumor blood vessels to tumor volumes (vascular index, VI). Finally, we statistically analyzedthe vascular index between benign and malignant tumors. We found that the sensitivity/specificity were21.3%/100% for 2D-CPD, and 81.3%/100% for 3D-CPD, based on the use of type-III of blood vessels fordiagnosis of the malignant lesions. In 3D-CPD, the type-III of blood vessels along with VI of > 0.3/cm3 canbe used as the criteria for the diagnosis of liver cancer since we found that average VI was 0.38/cm3 in 75malignant tumors, but 0.18/cm3 in 31 benign tumors (p<0.05). The sensitivity and specificity in determiningmalignancy in the liver based on VI > 0.3/cm3 were 78.7% and 87.1%, respectively.