The Imaging Performances of Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound, Computed Tomography, and Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Extrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma

Abstract

Objective: To compare the imaging performances of contrast-enhanced ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), thereby explore their values and significances in clinical practices of diagnosing extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Methods: A total of 56 patients with extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma were included as research objects. All the patients underwent contrast-enhanced ultrasound examination, enhanced MRI examination, and multi-slice helical CT (MSCT) examination. The major contents of analysis and observation included the location of the lesion, the range, the features of blood flow signal, the echoes of lesions at various phases, the enhancement levels, and the morphology. Then, the tabu search algorithm was applied to reconstruct the images, thereby completing the construction of the image objective function. Results: In terms of histopathological typing, 9 papillary adenocarcinomas, 22 invasive adenocarcinomas, and 25 poorly-to-moderate differentiated adenocarcinomas were found. In terms of ultrasound results, 27 lesions were isoechoic, 23 lesions were hypoechoic, and 6 lesions were hyperechoic. In terms of MRI results, 66% of the patients had hyperechoic lesions during the arterial phase, and 55.1% of the patients had isoechoic lesions during the portal phase. During the delay phase, 30.3% of the patients had isoechoic lesions, and 58.9% of the patients had hyperechoic lesions. Conclusion: Contrast-enhanced ultrasound, CT, and MRI had magnificent values and significance in the clinical diagnosis of extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, which could be widely applied in the diagnosis and treatment of extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. In addition, the contrast-enhanced ultrasound and CT could be used as an effective supplementary basis for enhanced MRI diagnosis. These three diagnostic methods had respective advantages and could be used in combination.