RELIABILITY OF TRANSCRANIAL COLOR-CODED REAL-TIME SONOGRAPHY IN ASSESSMENT OF BRAIN-TUMORS - CORRELATION OF ULTRASOUND, COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHYAND BIOPSY FINDINGS

Transcranial colour-coded real-time sonography (TCCS) was carried out in 25 patients with brain tumours to determine whether this noninvasiv e method provides additional information about the extent of solid tum our, its differentiation from oedema, and its tissue components. All 2 5 patients had serial computed tomography (CT)-guided stereotactic bio psies. Comparison of ultrasound, CT and histological findings revealed that the vast majority of contrast enhancing areas on CT were hyperec hogenic (32/33; 97%) and contained tumour tissue (29/32; 91%). Hyperec hogenic areas always represented solid tumour (23/23 patients), even w hen CT showed low density non-enhancing lesions. In lesions hypoechoge nic on TCCS and low density on CT, histology consistently revealed nec rotic tumour (7/7). Biopsies obtained from parenchyma with normal echo genicity revealed tumour in only 3 of 16 specimens. Despite the high s pecificity of TCCS in the differentiation of tumour components, its se nsitivity to tumour was inferior to that of CT (24/25; 96%). TCCS thus allows noninvasive preoperative identification of tumour tissue and i ts extent setting.