Use of Iron Sensitive T2* MR Imaging as a Novel Method to Diagnose Hepatocellular Carcinoma

Andrew Dean Hardie¹, Peter Romano¹

Hepatic iron deposition is a common finding in cirrhosis and MRI has the ability to detect iron. As hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) does not have the same degree of iron uptake as the liver, iron sensitive MR sequences allow visualization of HCC. We evaluated a novel method for identifying HCC with a breath-hold multi-echo gradient echo sequence using gadolinium enhanced images as the reference standard. On a per patient basis, the technique demonstrated 100% sensitivity and 78% sensitivity on a per lesion basis. This sequence could be used in patients contraindicated for gadolinium.