What are the reasons recommending diagnostic radiology of liver tumors?

Successful diagnosis and therapy of focal liver lesions requires a close cooperation between hepatologists, radiologists, and surgeons. The various radiological methods will put together the puzzle of questions posed by the surgeon. The novel techniques such as CTAP and contrast-enhanced MRI can combine their exact images of various tomographic sections with the results of functional data obtained by nuclear medicine, and this increasingly permets detection and evaluation of even small lesions, differentiation of types, and spatial demarcation of liver lesions for definition of volumes for surgical resection. Intraoperative application of the radiological techniques allows corrections to be made to the initial treatment plan after surgical invasion and liver displacement. Dynamic radiological techniques will answer questions as to the remaining, well functioning liver tissue. Radiology is of particular significance in the performance of interventional therapy, CT-guided biopsy, or transarterial chemo-embolisation, with contrasting Lipiodol being a good labelling agent that shows the distribution of the chemotherapeuticals applied. Optimal imaging of the detected liver lesions in the surrounding liver parenchyma should be a routine task prior to surgery or interventional treatment planning. MRI examinations with the superparamagnetic contrast agents offer their capacities for extension of the range of imaging methods. (orig./VHE)