The value of gadobenate dimeglumine-enhanced hepatobiliary-phase MR imaging for the differentiation of scirrhous hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma with or without hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

To evaluate the value of the gadobenate dimeglumine-enhanced hepatobiliary-phase magnetic resonance (MR) imaging for the differentiation of scirrhous hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CC) with or without HCC. We retrospectively evaluated unenhanced and gadobenate dimeglumine-enhanced dynamic and hepatobiliary-phase MR images of five patients with scirrhous HCCs and 29 patients with 57 CCs with or without HCC with statistical analysis using Fisher's exact test. Peripheral hyperintensity compared with the center on T2-weighted images was more frequent for scirrhous HCCs (n = 3, 60%) as compared to CCs with or without HCC (n = 7, 12%) (P = 0.026). There was no significant difference in the gadobenate dimeglumine-enhanced dynamic imaging of both scirrhous HCC and CC with or without HCC (P > 0.05). On hepatobiliary-phase images, scirrhous HCC showed no target appearance as compared with that 50 (87.7%) CCs with or without HCC showed target appearance (P < 0.001). Although both scirrhous HCC and CC with or without HCC show similar imaging findings on unenhanced and gadobenate dimeglumine-enhanced dynamic MR images, gadobenate dimeglumine-enhanced hepatobiliary-phase MR images may be helpful to differentiate scirrhous HCC from CC with or without HCC.