Imaging of the Liver

Abstract

The liver is a large and homogenous organ and therefore is well suited for evaluation by many imaging techniques. Imaging of the liver has undergone vast changes during the last decade due to significant improvements in diagnostic imaging technology. As with the technical advances seen in helical computed tomography (CT), color doppler ultrasonography (US), fast magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and liver specific MR imaging contrast agents, the liver becomes the organ of interest in the abdomen. However, the study of liver neoplasms is particularly challenging. In many cases a preoperative diagnosis can be achieved with the appropriate combination of imaging techniques in a purely noninvasive fashion. This is important because many patients have benign, nonsurgical hepatic lesions, such as simple cyst or hemangioma. For many tumors each imaging technique provides a piece of information like a puzzle that must be combined with findings from other imaging techniques as well as clinical information to achieve a diagnosis. This issue of the European Journal of Radiology collects the current knowledge on hepatic imaging and interventional radiological techniques such as percutaneus treatment of liver hydatid cysts and chemoembolisation. I hope this issue devoted to the liver will help radiologists to perform their role as diagnostic and therapeutic consultants more effectively. The liver is a large and homogenous organ and therefore is well suited for evaluation by many imaging techniques. Imaging of the liver has undergone vast changes during the last decade due to significant improvements in diagnostic imaging technology. As with the technical advances seen in helical computed tomography (CT), color doppler ultrasonography (US), fast magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and liver specific MR imaging contrast agents, the liver becomes the organ of interest in the abdomen. However, the study of liver neoplasms is particularly challenging. In many cases a preoperative diagnosis can be achieved with the appropriate combination of imaging techniques in a purely noninvasive fashion. This is important because many patients have benign, nonsurgical hepatic lesions, such as simple cyst or hemangioma. For many tumors each imaging technique provides a piece of information like a puzzle that must be combined with findings from other imaging techniques as well as clinical information to achieve a diagnosis. This issue of the European Journal of Radiology collects the current knowledge on hepatic imaging and interventional radiological techniques such as percutaneus treatment of liver hydatid cysts and chemoembolisation. I hope this issue devoted to the liver will help radiologists to perform their role as diagnostic and therapeutic consultants more effectively.