Liver tumor imaging. Current concepts.

With the increasing availability of curative surgical techniques for primary and secondary hepatic neoplasms, the tasks for clinical imaging of patients suspected of having liver cancer have become more exacting. Detection of tumor, differential diagnosis of individual nodules, and mapping the anatomic extensions of malignant disease are now required routinely. The most sensitive imaging techniques are computed tomography and arterial portography and intraoperative sonography, but because of their invasiveness, there are reserved exclusively for cancer staging. For primary screening, magnetic resonance imaging is increasingly preferred over computed tomography because of its superiority in discriminating hemangiomas and cysts from metastases without the need for iodinated contrast material.