3-DIMENSIONAL POWER DOPPLER SONOGRAPHY OF TUMOR VASCULARITY

The purpose of this study was to assess the value of routine clinical examination using three-dimensional power Doppler sonography of intrat umoral blood flow. Twenty-two hepatocellular carcinomas, seven eases o f hepatic metastasis, four hepatic hemangiomas, six renal cell carcino mas, two cases of hepatic focal nodular hyperplasia, and one case of s plenic metastasis were included in the study. Three-dimensional images were reconstructed by maximum intensity projection method using cine- loop data on a built-in computer in a LOGIQ 500 and a LOGIQ 700 from G E Yokogawa Medical Systems. The three-dimensional images obtained were viewed multidirectionally on a monitor screen. Three-dimensional repr esentations of intratumoral blood flow became available for all tumors approximately 5 s to 30 s after scanning. In every case, the entire v asculature of the tumor was appreciated more easily from three-dimensi onal images than from cross-sectional two-dimensional images. These th ree-dimensional images of intratumoral blood flows corresponded to the tumor vessels that could be visualized by angiography at the early ar terial phase. Differential diagnosis of hepatic tumors based on distin ct difference in their intratumoral vascular structures was performed. Our results suggest that three-dimensional power Doppler sonography c an be used for routine clinical examination of tumor vascularity and m ay provide improved diagnostic information.