DETECTION OF FOCAL HEPATIC MASSES - STIR MR VS CT DURING ARTERIAL PORTOGRAPHY

Objective: Our goal was to compare short tau inversion recovery MRI (S TIR) to CT during arterial portography (CTAP) in the detection of hepa tic lesions. Materials and Methods: Over a 24 month period, 40 patient s evaluated for possible hepatic resection underwent T1, T2, and STIR MRI and CTAP. These studies were randomly ordered and interpreted by t wo independent readers. The total number of lesions and number of lesi ons within each hepatic segment were analyzed using McNemar's test. Re sults: Readers 1 and 2 detected 95 and 91 lesions by CTAP and 78 and 8 3 by STIR, respectively, which was not significantly different(p = 0.1 , reader 1; p = 0.4, reader 2). For both readers CTAP and STIR MRI det ected more lesions than either T2 or T1 MRI (p < 0.01). In the medial segment, readers 1 and 2 detected 18 and 17 lesions by CTAP and 7 and 9 by STIR, respectively (p = 0.01, reader 1; p = 0.035, reader 2). Con clusion: Short 7 inversion recovery MRI and CTAP are similar in total lesion detection except in the medial segment where lesions were more frequently identified by CTAP than STIR MRI.