Lesion detection and vascular assessment with modified CTAP and MR imaging of liver

This paper reports on a special CT arterial portography (CTAP) method with immediate and delayed scans compared to MR imaging of liver with fat-saturation images and angiographic portogram to determine whether CTAP and MR imaging could obviate the angiographic portogram and which imaging method best detects lesions. In 13 patients, CTAP was obtained on a FASTRAK CT scanner in an immediate and delayed dynamic mode with 0.4-sec sections. These CT results were compared to the angiographic portogram and MR results of T1-weighted SR (TR 300, TE 20, NEX 4) and T2-weighted SE (TR 2,000--2,500; TE 20/70; NEX 2) W=with and without fat saturation. CT/MR features analyzed included lesion detection, involvement of portal and hepatic veins, and adenopathy. Features were ranked from 0 = definitely normal to 4 = definitely abnormal