title: That liver lesion on MDCT in the oncology patient: is it important?
abstract: Multidetector-row computed tomography (MDCT) has become the primary imaging test for the staging and follow-up of most malignancies that originate outside of the central nervous system. Technical advances in this imaging technique have led to significant improvement in the detection of metastatic disease to the liver. An unintended by-product of this improving diagnostic acumen is the discovery of incidental hepatic lesions in oncology patients that in the past remained undetected. These ubiquitous, incidentally identified hepatic lesions have created a management dilemma for both clinicians and radiologists: are these lesions benign or do they represent metastases? Naturally, the answer to this question has profound prognostic and therapeutic implications. In this review, guidelines concerning the diagnosis and management of some of the more common hepatic incidental lesions detected in patients with extrahepatic malignancies are presented.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, NorthShore University Health System, University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine, Evanston, IL, USA. rgore@uchicago.edu
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Gore
authors.forename: Kiran H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Thakrar
authors.forename: Daniel R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Wenzke
authors.forename: Geraldine M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Newmark
authors.forename: Uday K
authors.initials: UK
authors.lastname: Mehta
authors.forename: Jonathan W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Berlin
mesh_terms: D000236:Adenoma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D020518:Focal Nodular Hyperplasia / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006391:Hemangioma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000556:secondary*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D061330:Multidetector Computed Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D064847:Multimodal Imaging; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed