How to diagnose liver cancer by ultrasound examination

Conventional ultrasound examination has now become the preferred method for screening liver space-occupying lesions. The most commonly used examination in hospitals is type B ultrasound examination, referred to as B-ultrasound.

How it works

It uses the different signal light spots generated by the reflection of sound waves from different tissues of the human body to form cross-sectional images of the human body. These images can intuitively show the internal anatomy of human organs, including the size of the organs, the shape of the blood vessels, the presence or absence of space-occupying lesions inside, as well as the shape, texture, and size of the lesions. It has unique advantages in distinguishing between solid and liquid spaces.

Diagnosis

Ultrasound imaging is now indispensable for the diagnosis of liver cancer. Liver cancer tissue has lost the normal structure of liver tissue. Under ultrasound, it can be seen that the cancer tissue presents different echoes compared with the surrounding normal liver: small liver cancers often present as mixed hypoechoic areas, and there is often a liquefied necrotic area in the center. After the emergence of color Doppler ultrasound, it is possible to distinguish liver cancer from liver hemangiomas and other benign intrahepatic lesions by detecting the blood supply of liver space-occupying lesions.

New Technology

In recent years, contrast imaging technology has been combined with ultrasound imaging to accurately display the characteristics of blood supply inside the tumor. For example, after injection of ultrasound contrast agent, significant enhancement can be seen in the liver cancer nodules in the arterial phase, while the lesions quickly become lower echoes than the surrounding liver parenchyma in the portal venous phase.

Ultrasound contrast imaging has further improved the accuracy of ultrasound diagnosis of liver cancer and can accurately distinguish benign lesions from malignant tumors.