[Detection of liver tumors]

Accurate detection of liver metastases in patients with known primary tumors is often essential for therapeutic decision making. Compared to conventional contrast media-enhanced CT unenhanced MRI seems to be slightly superior for the detection of small focal liver lesions. However, intraoperative US and CTAP show higher sensitivities for lesion detection but use of these techniques is limited because of their invasive character. The new superparamagnetic MR contrast medium ENDOREM improves the number of liver lesions detected significantly as compared to unenhanced MRI. Furthermore, as shown recently, ENDOREM-enhanced MRI may be as sensitive as CTAP. Thus, ENDOREM is useful for preoperative staging of liver tumors due to improvement in lesion detection and delineation of the hepatic vascular system.