Ablation treatment of primary and secondary liver tumors under contrast-enhanced ultrasound guidance in field practice of interventional ultrasound centers. A multicenter study

Publication date: August 2018Source: European Journal of Radiology, Volume 105Author(s): Giampiero Francica, Maria Franca Meloni, Laura Riccardi, Ilario de Sio, Fulvia Terracciano, Eugenio Caturelli, Maddalena Diana Iadevaia, Annabianca Amoruso, Paola Roselli, Jason Chiang, Mariano Scaglione, Maurizio PompiliAbstractThe present retrospective study was aimed at characterizing the clinical impact of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) as a guidance technique for ablation of primary and secondary liver tumors at six interventional ultrasound centers. 148 patients (103M/45F, median age 74 yrs.) with 151 liver target lesions (median size 15 mm, 86.7% Hepatocellular Carcinomas) in whom CEUS guidance was used for Percutaneous Ethanol Injection (35.2%), Radiofrequency (46.3%) and Microwave (18.5%) were selected during the period 2008–2016. CEUS-guided ablations represented 7.3% (range 2.5%–13.8%) of 2015 ablative sessions performed at the participating centers. Indications to CEUS-guided ablation were: improvement of conspicuity of the target (28.5%), a target lesion undetectable on B-mode ultrasound (29.8%), detection of viable areas in nodules with either incomplete ablation or local tumor progression (41.7%). Overall, complete radiological ablation was obtained in 113/151 tumors (74.8%), with heat-based techniques (RF and MW) achieving higher rate of successful ablation (86.7%) than PEI (51%). Neither deaths nor major complications occurred after ablations.CEUS guidance demo...
Source: European Journal of Radiology - Category: Radiology Source Type: research