Liver tumor characterization: comparison between liver-specific gadoxetic acid disodium-enhanced MRI and biphasic CT--a multicenter trial

OBJECTIVE: In our multi center trial we compared the potentials of biphasic contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) and a novel tissue-specific magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agent gadoxetic acid disodium in liver lesion characterization. METHODS: A total of 176 patients with 252 liver lesions were analyzed. There were 104 malignant and 148 benign lesions. High-field strength (1.0 T or 1.5 T) MR systems with T1-and T2-weighted sequences were used with and without fat suppression. After gadoxetic acid disodium injection, dynamic imaging and hepatocyte phase MR imaging were performed. Biphasic with 150 mg I/kg of body weight (100-200 mL) spiral CT was also performed. Image reading consisted of on-site (by study investigators) and fully blinded off-site (by E.S.P; C.R; and A.S) evaluations. The classification (benign or malignant) and characterization (lesion type) outcomes of both techniques were assessed. All imaging results were verified against a standard of reference. RESULTS: Both on-site and off-site evaluations demonstrated increases in the lesion classification accuracy with gadoxetic acid disodium-enhanced MRI when compared with spiral CT. This improvement was also shown for characterization. Gadoxetic acid disodium was well tolerated. CONCLUSIONS: Gadoxetic acid disodium offers a safe and diagnostically powerful tool for the evaluation of patients with focal liver lesions with a reliable assessment of lesion classification and characterization.