[Pharmaco-angiography of liver tumours (author's transl)]

In 36 patients with clinical suspicion of liver tumours, pharmaco-angiography using adrenalin was added to the usual liver arteriography. In 31 of these patients rumour involvement of the liver was confirmed by surgery, laparoscopy or autopsy. In four out of ten patients with benign liver tumours, pharmaco-angiography lead to improved demonstration and therefore classification of the tumour. Four out of seven malignant primary tumours. Four out of seven malignant primary tumours of the liver were also better demonstrated by pharmaco-angiography. Amongst 14 patients with liver metastases, an improvement in the angiographic demonstration by pharmaco-angiography was achieved in nine. This was particularly the case in tumours showing tumour vessels. Neither benign nor malignant tumours showed constriction of their vessels as a result of pharmaco-angiography and this is therefore not able to differentiate between these. It was also found that tumours showing the the same histology could behave differently during pharmaco-angiography.