State of the art in magnetic resonance imaging of hepatocellular carcinoma
Article Category: Review
Published Online: Nov 26, 2018
Page range: 353 - 364
Received: Oct 02, 2018
Accepted: Oct 19, 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/raon-2018-0044
© 2018 Natally Horvat, Serena Monti, Brunna Clemente Oliveira, Camila Carlos Tavares Rocha, Romina Grazia Giancipoli, Lorenzo Mannelli, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
Background
Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer worldwide and the second leading cause of cancer mortality. Chronic liver disease caused by viral infection, alcohol abuse, or other factors can lead to cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is the most important clinical risk factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) whereby the normal hepatic architecture is replaced by fibrous septa and a spectrum of nodules ranging from benign regenerative nodules to HCC, each one of them with different imaging features.
Conclusions
Furthermore, advanced techniques including the quantification of hepatic and intralesional fat and iron, magnetic resonance elastography, radiomics, radiogenomics, and positron emission tomography (PET)-MRI are highly promising for the extraction of new imaging biomarkers that reflect the tumor microenvironment and, in the future, may add decision-making value in the management of patients with HCC.