[Ultrasound contrast agents for liver diagnostics]

Ultrasound contrast agents have achieved a high level of acceptance in diagnostics of liver tumors. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound can, on the one hand, be used for detection of liver tumors, e.g., during the search for metastases in tumor staging, and, on the other hand, for tumor characterization. The dispersion behavior of the ultrasound contrast agent plays a decisive role in the characterization and the enhancement patterns correspond to a large extent to those already known from contrast-enhanced computed tomography. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound can also be employed for monitoring ablative tumor therapies, visualization of vessels difficult to depict, and measurement of the so-called liver transit time.