Ultrasound-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound treatment for needle-track seeding of hepatocellular carcinoma: Preliminary results

Figures & data

Table I.  Patient and tumour characteristics.

Patient no.	Age/sex	Tumour size (cm)	Tumour location	HIFU ablation sessions	Treatment time (min)	Follow up duration (months)	Local recurrence
1	52/M	1.5	Right chest wall	1	8	15	No
2	54/M	1.6	Right chest wall	1	9	14	No
3	46/M	1.8	Right chest wall	1	11	12	No
4	60/M	2.0	Right chest wall	2	14	11	No
5	55/M	1.9	Right chest wall	1	14	9	No
6	56/M	2.6	Abdominal wall	1	21	9	No
7	68/M	1.1	Right chest wall	1	6	8	No
8	45/F	2.2	Abdominal wall	1	15	8	No
9	60/M	1.4	Right chest wall	1	8	7	No

Note: Patient 4 received two sessions of HIFU ablation. Four months after the first HIFU ablation, a recurrent lesion adjacent to the treated lesion was detected. The patient received a repeat HIFU ablation of the new lesion.

Figure 1. A 56-year-old man with needle-track seeding of HCC on the abdominal wall, the lesion was located on the needle pathway of previous percutaneous RF ablation. (A) Before HIFU ablation, the lesion (arrow) showed enhancement on T1-weighted contrast-enhanced MRI. No enhancement was observed in the treated area (arrow) on T1-weighted contrast-enhanced MRI at one month (B), three months (C), and six months (D) after HIFU ablation.

Figure 2. A 60-year-old man with needle-track seeding of HCC on the chest wall. Four months after the first HIFU ablation a recurrent lesion was detected adjacent to the treated area. (A) Before the repeat HIFU ablation a lesion (arrow) adjacent to the treated area of first HIFU ablation (arrowhead) was detected, which showed enhancement on T1-weighted contrast-enhanced MRI. No enhancement was observed in the treated area (arrow) at one month (B), three months (C), and seven months (D) after the repeat HIFU ablation.