Functional CT for assessment of early vascular physiology in liver tumors.

BACKGROUND: CT perfusion has been reported to have great advantages in detecting hepatic diseases. However, currently there are no studies showing the potential value of multi-slice CT perfusion with the deconvolution model method in diagnosing early hemodynamic changes caused by liver tumors. This study was undertaken to determine if early hemodynamic changes caused by liver tumors can be depicted with the perfusion imaging of multi-slice CT. METHODS: Ten New Zealand white rabbits before and after VX2 liver tumor inoculation served as the experimental animals. Ten normal rabbits served as controls. All underwent multi-slice CT perfusion for the measurement of hepatic blood flow (HBF), hepatic blood volume (HBV), mean transit time (MTT), permeability of capillary vessel surface (PS) and hepatic artery index (HAI). RESULTS: With the exception of MTT, which decreased significantly at the tumor periphery, HBF, HBV, PS and HAI increased significantly compared with the surrounding normal tissue. All these changes occurred at days 5-9 after tumor inoculation. Statistically significant changes in these values were detected with tumor growth. CONCLUSIONS: The hemodynamic changes in the liver caused by rabbit VX2 liver tumor can be detected after tumor inoculation, and functional CT can evaluate the physiological characteristics of early tumor angiogenesis.