Detection of small hepatocellular carcinoma： Comparison of dynamic enhancement magnetic resonance imaging and multiphase multirow-detector helical CT scanning

AIM： To compare the gadolinium-enhanced multiphase dynamic magnetic resonance imaging （MRI） and multiphase multirow-detector helical CT （MDCT） scanning for detection of small hepatocellular carcinoma （HCC）. METHODS： MDCT scanning and baseline MRI with SE T1-WI and T2-WI sequence combined with FMPSPGR sequence were performed in 37 patients with 43 small HCCs. Receiver operating characteristic （ROC） curves were plotted to analyze the results for modality. RESULTS： The areas below ROC curve （Az） were calculated. There was no statistical difference in dynamic enhancement MDCT and MRI. The detection rate of small HCC was 97.5%-97.6% on multiphase MDCT scanning and 90.7%-94.7% on MRI, respectively. The sensitivity of detection for small HCC on MDCT scanning was higher than that on dynamic enhancement MRI. The sensitivity of detection for minute HCC （tumor diameter ≤ 1 cm） was 90.0%-95.0% on MDCT scanning and 70.0%-85.0% on MRI, respectively. CONCLUSION： MDCT scanning should be performed for early detection and effective treatment of small HCC in patients with chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis during follow-up.