Abstract
Objective
The aim of the study was to investigate the performance of dynamic 3-dimensional contrast-enhanced
ultrasound (3D-CEUS) on assessment of efficacy of local ablation therapy of hepatocellular
carcinoma (HCC) with contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) as reference standard.
Methods
Eighty-nine HCC lesions from 75 patients undergoing ultrasound-guided percutaneous
thermal ablation or chemical ablation were studied by both dynamic 3D-CEUS and contrast-enhanced
CT 1 month after ablation. Imaging results from two imaging modalities were evaluated independently
by experienced readers to determine whether the treated lesions were ablated incompletely
(residual unablated tumor) or completely. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative
predictive values, and accuracy to identify incomplete ablation were calculated for
dynamic 3D-CEUS imaging with contrast-enhanced CT as reference standard.
Results
Contrast-enhanced CT reported that 80.9% (72/89) of all the treated lesions were completely
ablated and 19.1% (17/89) were incompletely ablated. The dynamic 3D-CEUS identified
82.0% (73/89) and 18.0% (16/89) of lesions as completely and incompletely ablated,
respectively. With contrast-enhanced CT as the reference standard, the sensitivity,
specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of
dynamic 3D-CEUS for identifying residual unablated tumor were 88.2% (15/17), 98.6%
(71/72), 93.8% (15/16), 97.3% (71/73), and 96.6% (86/89), respectively. The Kappa
value for identifying residual unablated tumor between contrast-enhanced CT and dynamic
3D-CEUS was 0.89.
Conclusions
Dynamic 3D-CEUS is highly consistent with contrast-enhanced CT in assessment of efficacy
of HCC ablation and has potential to serve as an alternative to contrast-enhanced
CT in the follow-up assessment after HCC ablation.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: December 03, 2015
Accepted:
November 18,
2015
Received in revised form:
October 17,
2015
Received:
July 6,
2015
Footnotes
☆Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Identification
Copyright
Published by Elsevier Inc.
