Intracranial metastases of hepatocellular carcinoma: CT and MRI

We report clinical characteristics and CT and MRI in 16 patients with brain metastases due to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Eight of these 16 patients presented with apoplexy-like symptoms (50%). Pulmonary metastases were found in 13 cases (81.3%). The mean survival from the appearance of cerebral metastases to death was 6.2 weeks, which is one of the shortest survival terms in metastatic brain tumours. Haemorrhagic brain metastases were observed in 14 patients (87.5%) with a tendency for the frequency of bleeding to increase in proportion to the size of the tumour. On both contrast-enhanced CT and MRI, metastatic brain tumours enhanced strongly, suggesting that brain metastases, like HCC, are also hypervascular. MRI is useful in evaluating brain metastases from HCC, especially in order to differentiate tumour from haemorrhage. Our results demonstrated a poor prognosis and bleeding tendency of brain metastases due to HCC and showed the usefulness of CT and MRI in achieving a correct diagnosis.