PREOPERATIVE DIAGNOSTICS IN BENIGN AND MA LIGNANT LIVER-TUMORS - COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY OR MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING

A reliable preoperative detection and characterization of all liver le sions is necessary for the clarification of the operability of a patie nt. In patients, who are considered as good candidates for a partial l iver resection, 3 double spiral-CT with an oral bowel opacification an d an intravenous contrast medium administration is recommended. In tho se patients, who continue to be candidates for partial liver resection after CT, a CT arterioportography with arterial and portalvenous live r enhancement should be performed as the present gold standard of preo perative liver diagnostics. The Rim of CT arterioportography is the fu rther selection of patients for liver surgery. Because of its high spe cificity, MRI is useful for the characterization of liver lesions of u nknown histology. For the differentiation between malignant (metastase s) and benign (hemangioma) liver lesions, MRI is the method of choice. Because of the expected technical developments of MRI, a short-term c omparison of CT and MRT in prospective studies is necessary.