Hepatocellular adenomas in men: MRI findings in four patients

✍ Scribed by Evlampia A. Psatha; Richard C. Semelka; Diane Armao; John T. Woosley; Zeynep Firat; Guenther Schneider

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 511 KB
• Volume: 22
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1053-1807
• DOI: 10.1002/jmri.20375

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Purpose

To demonstrate both MRI and histopathological findings of hepatocellular adenomas (HCAs) in men.

Materials and Methods

HCAs in four men are reported. All patients underwent MR studies at 1.5T including serial gadolinium‐enhanced gradient echo imaging.

Results

Three men had solitary non‐hemorrhagic adenomas that exhibited a uniform capillary blush with no central scar, and uniform fading of the tumor to near isointensity with the liver parenchyma by one minute. One of the subjects had uniform fat content as shown by uniform low signal on out‐of‐phase images. One patient had a solitary hemorrhagic adenoma that measured 17 cm in diameter and was heterogeneous on all sequences. Two of the four patients had a history of anabolic steroid use, and in the other two patients no underlying explanation for the tumor was found.

Conclusions

Although three of the four patients had tumors that exhibited uniform homogeneous tumor blush and rapid fading of enhancement, because HCAs are rare in men and resemble hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in appearance, our findings suggest that histological confirmation of HCAs may not be avoidable in men. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2005;22:258–264. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.