[Space-occupying lesions in the liver--rational step-wise diagnosis]

For high diagnostic quality, it is crucial that the examiner has an exact knowledge of the liver tumor pathology in order to search for characteristic criteria. On the other hand knowledge of the overall spectrum of all diagnostic possibilities would also be necessary, for isolated cases, i.e. to be able to select in an individual clinical situation the critical investigation or the efficient sequence of investigations, in order to produce a swift and reliable diagnosis. With it, however, comes the aggravation of perpetual technical improvements in the tomographic imaging technique, and a wide variety of contrast mediums are constantly being developed and introduced, causing continuous problems in taking the right decision.