Ultrasound-guided liver biopsy: accuracy, safety and sonographic findings

An experience of 97 liver biopsies performed under the guidance of a portable ultrasonographic procedure was reviewed. Of the 88 cases in which the results of biopsy were available, 73 malignant and 7 benign liver diseases were correctly diagnosed by the procedure, an accuracy of 90.9 per cent. There was no mortality. Significant complication was observed in 5 cases and consisted of 3 cases of intraperitoneal bleeding that required only blood transfusion, one case of upper gastrointestinal bleeding presumed to be hemobilia and one case of persistent fever of 38 degrees C that subsided after antibiotic administration. Ultrasound-guided liver biopsy can be an effective and safe outpatient procedure for pathological diagnosis of liver diseases. Analysis of sonographic and histologic correlation revealed that the types of sonographic appearance could not be significantly correlated to the histologic nature of the masses. Therefore, accurate prediction of pathology of liver masses from their sonograms is not possible.