Benign Neoplasms of the Liver

Automated diagnosis of focal liver lesions using bidirectional empirical mode decomposition features

Liver is the heaviest internal organ of the human body and performs many vital functions. Prolonged cirrhosis and fatty liver disease may lead to the formation of benign or malignant lesions in this organ, and an early and reliable evaluation of these conditions can improve treatment outcomes. Ultrasound imaging is a safe, non-invasive, and cost-effective way of diagnosing liver lesions. However, this technique has limited performance in determining the nature of the lesions. This study initiates a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system to aid radiologists in an objective and more reliable interpretation of ultrasound images of liver lesions. In this work, we have employed radon transform and bi-directional empirical mode decomposition (BEMD) to extract features from the focal liver lesions. After which, the extracted features were subjected to particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique for the selection of a set of optimized features for classification. Our automated CAD system can differentiate normal, malignant, and benign liver lesions using machine learning algorithms. It was trained using 78 normal, 26 benign and 36 malignant focal lesions of the liver. The accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of lesion classification were 92.95%, 90.80%, and 97.44%, respectively. The proposed CAD system is fully automatic as no segmentation of region-of-interest (ROI) is required.

Enhanced growth of hepatic hemangiomatosis in two adults after postmenopausal estrogen replacement therapy

Liver hemangiomatosis is defined as extensive hemangioma in the liver. Although hemangioma is the most common hepatic tumor, diffuse hepatic hemangiomatosis is very rare. Most cases of hepatic hemangiomatosis are seen in infancy, but it is extremely rare in adults. This is the first report, showing the enhanced growth of diffuse hepatic hemangiomatosis after hormone replacement therapy. We report herein two unrelated women, 47 and 42 year-old, from different regions of Turkey, who admitted to hospital because of right abdominal pain with diffuse hepatic hemangiomatosis, developed after hormone replacement therapy for menopause. The patients were healthy, except for hemangiomatosis, and their physical examination, routine laboratory tests, and tumor marker levels were within normal limits. It should be noted that their abdominal ultrasonography was normal before hormone therapy, but ultrasonography on admission revealed numerous, ill defined, diffusely located liver nodules in both patients. Dynamic magnetic resonance imaging and scintigraphy have revealed that these lesions are compatible with hemangiomatosis. These results suggest that hepatic hemangiomatosis was induced by estrogen therapy. Consequently, hormone replacement therapy was discontinued, and the patients were followed up for 3 years. Their physical examination and blood chemistry, including liver enzymes, remained within normal range, and the follow-up examination with ultrasonography showed no changes in size of lesions. Because of the possible association of hemangioma with estrogen administration, decisions should be made carefully about estrogen therapy for patients who already have hemangioma, and the periodic ultrasonograpy examination should be planned to detect possible new growth of liver hemangiomatosis.

Diagnostic and pathogenetic implications of the expression of hepatic transporters in focal lesions occurring in normal liver

Hepatocellular adenoma and focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) are benign liver tumours. The differential diagnosis of these lesions and of well- to moderately differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas is often difficult but is very important in view of their different treatment. Although neither type of lesion is connected to the biliary tree, FNHs are cholestatic, whereas this is rarely the case for hepatocellular adenomas. This suggests that hepatocellular uptake and secretion of bile constituents is different in FNHs compared to adenomas. We therefore evaluated the expression and localization of hepatic transporters in hepatocellular adenomas, different types of FNH and well- to moderately differentiated hepatocellular carcinomas in non-cirrhotic liver and compared them with normal liver, using real-time RT-PCR and (semi-)quantitative immunohistochemistry. The parenchymal expression of the uptake transporter OATP2/8 (OATP1B1/3) was minimal or absent in adenoma, while there was strong and diffuse expression in FNH. We observed diffuse parenchymal expression of the basolateral export pump MRP3 in adenomas, while only reactive bile ductules and adjacent cholestatic hepatocytes were MRP3-positive in FNH. The MRP3/OATP2/8 expression pattern of atypical FNHs resembled that of adenomas, suggesting that both types of lesion are related. Most hepatocellular carcinomas showed decreased expression of one or more of the canalicular transporters (MDR1, MDR3, BSEP). The differences in transporter expression profile between FNHs and adenomas are most likely pathogenetically important and may explain why only FNHs are cholestatic. The finding that each type of focal lesion in non-cirrhotic liver has a specific transporter expression pattern may be useful in the establishment of a correct diagnosis by imaging or on needle biopsy.

Oral contraceptives and liver hemangioma: a case-control study

OBJECTIVE

To study whether there is an epidemiological association between liver hemangiomas and oral contraception use, as may be suggested by clinical observations of liver hemangioma growth during pregnancy and under estrogen administration.

METHODS

A case-control study of 40 women with liver hemangiomas, as diagnosed by imaging studies [ultrasonography (US) or computed tomography (CT) and nuclear scan], and 109 age-matched control with normal studies. The women were interviewed with respect to their menstrual, reproductive and oral contraception use history.

RESULTS

The liver hemangioma and control groups did not differ significantly with regard to their menstrual or reproductive history. Ever oral contraception use was reported by 30% of the cases and 27% of controls. The odds ratio (OR) was 1.1 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.52-2.60] for ever use, 1.64 (95% CI 0.37-7.13) for initiation before the age of 20, and 0.62 (95% CI 0.16-2.42) for use duration of less than 1 year. On the multivariate analysis only the women's age emerged as a predictor for liver hemangiomas (OR 3.1; 95% CI 1.16-8.96).

CONCLUSIONS

In this study liver hemangiomas were not associated with menstrual, reproductive and oral contraception use history.