Improved detectability of liver metastases with multislice CT

The introduction of multidetector computed tomography in clinical routine c reates a new dimension of increased spatial and temporal resolution in CT s canning. On the basis of the very short acquisition time, the whole liver c an now be scanned within one breathhold. Multidetector-CT allows the examin ation of the liver with nearly isotropic data sets. This is the prerequisit e for the optimal assessment of very small liver lesions in all planes and excellent enhancement of liver lesions in defined organic perfusion phases. The speed of multidetector-CT can either be used to reduce the time to cov er a given volume, or to use narrower beam collimation to increase the reso lution of details along the z-axis and to reduce volume averaging. We report our clinical experiences in hepatic multidetector-CT examinations and optimized examination protocols in the assessment of hepatic metastase s. Multidetector-CT and the use of interactive multiplanar reconstructions imp rove the detection and characterization of liver meta stases. However, new problems in data management may arise from the large amount of data generat ed by multidetector-CT.