Imaging features of primary hepatic sarcomatoid carcinoma: Differentiation from hepatocellular carcinoma and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma on CT: A preliminary study

作者：Lintao Chen, Shijian Ruan, Pan Wang, Yongna Cheng, Yubizhuo Wang, Wuwei Tian, Hongbin Zhang, Xiuming Zhang, Wenjie Liang · 发表于：Heliyon · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14123 · 被引用次数：14 · 研究领域：Cholangiocarcinoma and Gallbladder Cancer Studies、Metastasis and carcinoma case studies、Gallbladder and Bile Duct Disorders

Purpose: Primary hepatic sarcomatoid carcinoma (PHSC) is a rare type of malignant tumor in the liver. Nevertheless, few studies have focused on the imaging diagnosis of PHSC. In this study, we collected clinical and computed tomography (CT) imaging data of PHSC from two institutions, aiming to investigate the clinical and radiological characteristics of PHSC. Methods: We retrospectively investigated the clinical characteristics and CT features of 22 PHSC patients (19 males and 3 females; mean age, 63.4 years; range, 49 to 76 years), 95 hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and 50 intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) patients. Two radiologists independently evaluated the CT features of the three groups. Subsequently, we analyzed the differences in the clinical characteristics and CT features between the PHSC and control groups. Results: < 0.001). In the arterial phase, PHSC always showed noticeable heterogeneous enhancement (100.0%), mainly manifesting as partial arterial phase hyperenhancement (APHE) (86.4%). The enhancement patterns of PHSC mainly included delayed progressive enhancement (72.7%), nonperipheral washout (22.7%), and unclassified enhancement (4.5%), which were significantly different from the HCC enhancement pattern but similar to the enhancement pattern of ICC. In addition, vein tumor thrombus (18.2%), intrahepatic metastasis (27.3%), and lymphadenopathy (27.3%) were relatively common in PHSC. Furthermore, most PHSC tumors classified as LR-M (66.7%) were si...