Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, Vol 4, Issue 8 401-404, Copyright © 1985 by American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine
Serial changes in sonographic appearance after transcatheter hepatic arterial embolization
H. Onodera, M. Oikawa, M. Abe, N. Chida and Y. Goto
Serial changes in sonographic appearance after transcatheter hepatic
arterial embolization (TAE) were studied in 22 patients who had hepatoma
and one patient who had a hepatoblastoma. These changes were classified
into three types. In cases of type 1, the internal echo of the entire tumor
became remarkably echogenic with or without an acoustic shadow. In cases of
type 2, echogenic areas or scattered echogenic spots with or without
acoustic shadows were observed. In Type 3 cases, no changes in sonographic
appearance were observed. Tumor diameters in all of the type 1 cases were
less than 4.9 cm. Various size tumors were observed in the cases of type 2
and type 3. Transcatheter arterial embolization was completely effective or
effective in 89 per cent of the type 1 and type 2 cases, but was not
effective in 75 per cent of the type 3 cases. The sonographic changes
correlated well with the effectiveness of TAE.
