Scientific publications
Extrahepatic Disease in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Do We Always Need Whole-Body CT or Is Liver MRI Sufficient? A Subanalysis of the SORAMIC Trial
Thomas Geyer 1 , Philipp M Kazmierczak 1 , Ingo G Steffen 1 , Peter Malfertheiner 1 2 , Bora Peynircioglu 3 , Christian Loewe 4 , Otto van Delden 5 , Vincent Vandecaveye 6 , Bernhard Gebauer 7 , Maciej Pech 8 , Christian Sengel 9 , Irene Bargellini 10 , Roberto Iezzi 11 , Alberto Benito 12 , Christoph J Zech 13 , Antonio Gasbarrini 14 , Kerstin Schütte 15 16 , Jens Ricke 1 , Max Seidensticker 1
Background: To investigate whole-body contrast-enhanced CT and hepatobiliary contrast liver MRI for the detection of extrahepatic disease (EHD) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and to quantify the impact of EHD on therapy decision.
Methods: In this post-hoc analysis of the prospective phase II open-label, multicenter, randomized controlled SORAMIC trial, two blinded readers independently analyzed the whole-body contrast-enhanced CT and gadoxetic acid-enhanced liver MRI data sets of 538 HCC patients. EHD (defined as tumor manifestation outside the liver) detection rates of the two imaging modalities were compared using multiparametric statistical tests. In addition, the most appropriate treatment recommendation was determined by a truth panel.
Results: EHD was detected significantly more frequently in patients with portal vein infiltration (21% vs. 10%, p < 0.001), macrovascular infiltration (22% vs. 9%, p < 0.001), and bilobar liver involvement (18% vs. 9%, p = 0.006). Further on, the maximum lesion diameter in patients with EHD was significantly higher (8.2 cm vs. 5.8 cm, p = 0.002). CT detected EHD in significantly more patients compared to MRI in both reader groups (p < 0.001). Higher detection rates of EHD in CT led to a change in management only in one patient since EHD was predominantly present in patients with locally advanced HCC, in whom palliative treatment is the standard of care.
Conclusions: Whole-body contrast-enhanced CT shows significantly higher EHD detection rates compared to hepatobiliary contrast liver MRI. However, the higher detection rate did not yield a significant impact on patient management in advanced HCC.
CITATION Biomedicines. 2022 May 18;10(5):1156. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines10051156