SummaryIntroduction. The liver is a parenchimal abdominal organ with wide variety of primary benign or malignant tumors as well as metastatic tumors.Aim of the study. Was to evaluate the informativity and usefulness of abdominal ultrasound (US) and computer tomography (CT) imaging results in diagnostics of focal liver lesions.Material and methods. The study was conducted in Pauls Stradins Clinical University Hospital. Retrospective analysis of 126 patients with focal liver lesions was performed in the time period of 5 years (2009 till 2014). The medical records of patients with focal liver lesions were analyzed. Primary diagnosis detected by US or CT was evaluated and compared with final morphology after surgical operation or liver biopsy. The obtained results were expressed in percent and analyzed. Sensitivity and specificity of CT scan to detect malignant hepatic lesions was estimated and expressed as percentage with 95% confidence interval.Results. A total of 126 patients with diagnosed liver lesions were included in the study. 96 patients were in the group with performed liver CT scans, with median age of 58.9 years. 30 patients were included in the group with liver US, with median age of 60.1 years. Liver biopsy under US control was performed for 95 patients, but surgical operations with liver resections for 31 patients. 86 patients had malignant liver lesions, but 40 had benign liver lesions. In the US group primary and final diagnosis agreement was in 26 (87%) cases, but diagnosis disagreement in 4 (13%) cases. Diagnosis disagreement was found in 26 (27.1%) cases in the CT group, but agreement was in 70 (72.9%) cases. Overall sensitivity of CT to detect malignant hepatic lesions was 95.2% (95%CI 86.7-98.3%) and specificity was 64.7% (95%CI 47.9-78.5%).Conclusions. CT is a good imaging method for detection of focal liver lesions. In case of unclear diagnosis, percutaneous liver puncture biopsy is recommended. It is mandatory to develop a unified CT scan and US investigation protocol to improve the quality of investigation as well as further treatment tactics.
Classification of focal liver lesions on ultrasound images by extracting hybrid textural features and using an artificial neural network
