Diffusion-weighted MR imaging findings in a growing problem: hepatic alveolar echinococcosis

Hepatic alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a rare parasitic disease which simulates slow growing malignant processes. Cross-sectional imaging techniques play important role in differentiating between AE lesions and malignant processes such as cholangiocellular carcinoma (CCC) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Diffusion-weighted (DW) MRI is a non-invasive technique, which can be used for liver lesion detection and characterisation as benign or malignant in recent years. Both conventional MRI and non-contrast enhanced CT images may be insufficient the differential diagnosis in hepatic AE lesions particularly in solid components. In our study, we have performed to differentiate hepatic AE lesions from HCC and CCC lesions of the liver by using DW MRI and tried to define ADC value of hepatic AE lesions for differentiation from malignant hepatic lesions.