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New directions in ultrasound: microbubble contrast

Department of Radiology, King's College Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SE5 9RS, UK

View larger version (37K): [in a new window]   Figure 1. (a) A B-mode image of the right lobe of the liver obtained at 3 min 6 s following the administration of Levovist®. There is an indeterminate heterogeneous area (between arrows) that is poorly defined but suspicious of malignancy in a patient with a known primary tumour outside the liver. (b) Using a late-phase destructive mode (Agent Detection Imaging, ADI®; Siemens, Mountain View, CA), there is transient destruction of the microbubble contrast agent in normal liver tissue, but absence of microbubble contrast in the tumour appears as "two-black holes" (arrow).

View larger version (65K): [in a new window]   Figure 2. (a) A well demarcated tumour in the right lobe of the liver (arrow) on B-mode imaging. (b) Image of the same tumour obtained at 18 s (arterial phase) following the administration of SonoVue®, and using a low mechanical index imaging technique (Cadence Contrast Pulse Sequencing, CPS®; Siemens, Mountain View, CA), demonstrates prominent arterial signal within the tumour. (c) Image of the same tumour at 60 s (portal-venous phase) demonstrating complete in-filling; the appearances are in keeping with a benign tumour and representative of an area of focal nodular hyperplasia.