Proposal of a new diagnostic algorithm for hepatocellular carcinoma based on the Japanese guidelines but adapted to the Western world for patients under surveillance for chronic liver disease

Abstract

To date, despite many scientific evidences, the guidelines of the principal hepatological societies, such as the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the European Association for the Study of the Liver, and the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver, do not recognize the diagnostic superiority of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) over computed tomography in the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and, for the most part, do not contemplate the use of hepatospecific contrast media, such as gadolinium-ethoxybenzyl-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (EOB). The aim of this paper was to analyze the recent results of EOB-MRI in the study of chronic liver disease and the differences between the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the Japan Society of Hepatology guidelines, of which the latter represents the most consolidated experience on EOB-MRI use for HCC diagnosis. Finally, a new diagnostic algorithm for HCC in patients under surveillance for chronic liver disease was formulated, which contemplates the use of EOB. This new diagnostic algorithm is based on the Japan Society of Hepatology algorithm but goes beyond it by adapting it to the Western world, taking into account both the difference between the two and the latest results concerning the diagnosis of HCC. This new diagnostic algorithm for HCC is proposed in order to provide useful diagnostic tools to all those Western countries where the use of EOB (more expensive than extracellular contrast media) is widespread but in which common strategies to manage the nodules that this new contrast agent allows identifying have not been available to date.

Keywords: diagnosis; hepatocellular carcinoma; hepatospecific contrast media; imaging; preneoplastic lesions.