Clinical evaluation of pulsatile flow detection for qualitative diagnosis of hepatic tumors complicated with liver cirrhosis

An apparatus for pulsatile flow detection (PFD), by which all characteristic pulsatile flow alone is selectively visualized in the same color in color Doppler ultrasonography, has recently been developed. Detection of pulsatile flow is derived from changes in the velocity, variance, and power values of blood flow. We evaluated both the accuracy of selective visualization of pulsatile flow in a single color and the clinical usefulness of this method in patients with hepatic tumors associated with liver cirrhosis. The subjects were 13 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and 3 patients with adenomatous hyperplasia who underwent both conventional color Doppler ultrasonography and PFD. In the intratumoral blood flow in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, pulsatile flow, indicated in green and confirmed by color Doppler ultrasonography as flowing into the tumor, and continuous blood flow, indicated in red or blue, were visualized by PFD. This method will contribute to qualitative diagnosis and treatment of tumors complicated with liver cirrhosis and the choice of treatment for those tumors.