Early contrast enhancement of the liver: exact description of subphases using MRI

The purpose of this study was to describe the subphases of early post-contrast enhancement of the liver, using vessel enhancement patterns, and correlate these findings with enhancement patterns of abdominal organs.

A total of 114 patients who underwent gadolinium-enhanced abdominal magnetic resonance imaging examinations constituted the final study group, of which 56 were women (age range, 3-94 years; mean, 50 years) and 58 were men (age range, 6-85 years; mean, 54 years). Early post-contrast sequences in all patients were evaluated retrospectively by two reviewers for the determination of the presence of contrast enhancement in predetermined major vessels of the abdomen and qualitative and quantitative extent of enhancement of the renal cortex, spleen, pancreas and liver. Based on the overall findings, subphases of early contrast enhancement of the liver were described and quantitative extent of enhancement of organs was correlated with subphases of early contrast enhancement of the liver. Mann-Whitney U test and one-way unbalanced analysis of variance tests were used for the comparisons.

Early hepatic arterial phase was observed in 14/114 patients, mid-hepatic arterial phase in 23/114 patients, late hepatic arterial phase in 33/114 patients, splenic vein only hepatic arterial dominant phase in 20/114 patients and hepatic arterial dominant phase in 24/114 patients. There was an overall association between the subphases of enhancement and the quantitative extent of enhancement for all studied organs (P<.0001).

The evaluation of vessel and organ enhancement patterns has allowed the characterization of five different subphases in early post-contrast enhancement of the liver. The quantitative extent of enhancement of abdominal organs also demonstrated significant correlation with these five subphases.