Small hepatocellular carcinoma: relationship of signal intensity to histopathologic findings and metal content of the tumor and surrounding hepatic parenchyma.

Abstract

To investigate the relationship between the metal content of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the signal intensity pattern on magnetic resonance images. The signal intensity patterns of 59 HCCs 3 cm in diameter or smaller were correlated with histologic findings and metal content. HCCs with high signal intensity on T1-weighted images demonstrated more steatosis (P = .035) and higher copper content (P = .008) than did surrounding hepatic parenchyma. HCCs with high signal intensity on T2-weighted images demonstrated more clear cells (P = .001) than did surrounding hepatic parenchyma. The higher signal intensities on T1-weighted and T2-weighted images were related to a higher and a lower degree of histologic differentiation, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that the contrast-to-noise ratio between the HCC and surrounding hepatic parenchyma was affected by intratumoral copper content (P = .0338), zinc content of surrounding hepatic parenchyma (P = .0379), and the degree of histologic differentiation on T1-weighted (P = .0031) and T2-weighted (P = .0062) images. The signal intensity of HCC on T1-weighted images is related to the degree of histologic differentiation, intratumoral copper content, and zinc content of surrounding hepatic parenchyma, whereas the signal intensity on T2-weighted images is related to the degree of histologic differentiation.