Detection of tumor thrombus in children using color Doppler ultrasonography

Color Doppler ultrasonography (CDUS), which provides information regarding both the tissue and the blood flow simultaneously in real time, is a relatively new and noninvasive technique for the evaluation of organ perfusion. The authors investigated the usefulness of CDUS in the detection of tumor thrombus in 34 children who had malignant tumor (21 neuroblastomas, 2 Wilms' tumors, 5 hepatoblastomas, 2 rhabdomyosarcomas, and 4 others) who underwent CDUS between April 1992 and March 1995 in our department. The CDUS showed tumor thrombus in four patients (11.8%). Three thrombi (in one patient each with neuroblastoma, Wilms' tumor, and hepatoblastoma) were situated in the inferior vena cava, and one (in a patient who had hepatoblastoma) in the portal vein. Each tumor thrombus was monitored and followed up using CDUS every month during the entire clinical course; two of the four thrombi remained despite intensive treatments. The authors have found CDUS to afford rapid and noninvasive detection of tumor thrombus, and it proved useful not only in the detection of tumor thrombus but also in its follow-up in these children who had malignant tumor.