Value and limitations of abdominal ultrasound in tumour staging--liver metastasis and lymphoma.

Real time ultrasound findings in 137 patients with proven or suspected liver metastasis and 51 patients with suspected malignant lymphoma were analyzed in order to define the accuracy of this method in tumour staging procedures. Sensitivity of liver metastasis was low (54.4%), while specificity (92.0%) and negative predictive value (95.8%) were good. Sensitivity for malignant lymphoma was better (84.6%), but specificity was less satisfactory (72.0%). Accuracy was dependent of the type of the primary tumour, bronchial carcinoma resulting in a very poor detection of liver metastases and suspected metastatic lymphoma leading to a large number of false positive results. We conclude from our data that only positive ultrasound findings of liver metastases or multiple lymphoma and probably a negative examination of the liver in patients with colonic carcinoma are sufficiently reliable to be used for therapeutic decisions in patients with malignant diseases.