Hepatic splenosis, description of an unusual behavior at contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS).

Abstract

The case was a 47-year-old male, asymptomatic, with a personal history of splenectomy in childhood. He was referred to our outpatient clinic to complete the study of space-occupying liver lesion. The initial diagnostic suspicion was liver adenoma, given its behavior on magnetic resonance imaging and the absence of previous liver disease. We performed an intravascular contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) (SonoVue©). The lesion showed rapid centripetal enhancement, remaining enhanced in the portal phase with dim washout in the late venous phase. Given the therapeutic implications of the diagnosis of a hepatic adenoma, an ultrasound-guided percutaneous biopsy with an 18-gauge core needle was performed. The anatomopathological study confirmed the presence of hepatic splenosis. Hepatic splenosis can present as isolated or multiple foci (1). There is little published information on the behavior of hepatic splenosis in CEUS (2, 3, 4), which prevents any behavior from being generalized. The most frequently described behavior is hyperenhancement in the arterial phase without subsequent washout, not a specific behavior that can lead to the misdiagnosis of other entities such as hemangioma. In our case, it was caused by an isolated focus of splenosis that did not show the most frequent described behavior at CEUS, since it presented a faint washout in the venous phase, making it necessary to rule out malignancy.