Recent advances in ultrasonographic diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma

The diagnostic accuracy of ultrasonography (US) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was estimated by checking against the regional cancer registry, and also the clinical features, major therapy, and prognosis of HCC cases diagnosed by initial US were examined for the two periods of 1980 and 1984. The number of patients with HCC was 83 of 4442 in 1980 and 86/3393 in 1984. As for the detectability of the tumor, the sensitivity improved from 94.0% to 96.5%. Regarding the ability to confirm the detected tumor to be HCC, the sensitivity improved from 53.0% to 68.6% without decrease in the specificity of 99.9%. The size and number of nodules were more accurately diagnosed in 1984, and cases with small (less than or equal to 4 cm) single nodule increased from 2% to 9%. Active therapy was performed in more cases and the 2-year survival rate increased from 9% to 20%. The remarkable improvement was achieved in the diagnostic accuracy of US for HCC during 4 years from 1980 to 1984.