The Value of Clinical and Ultrasound Features for the Diagnosis of Infantile Hepatic Hemangioma: Comparison with Contrast-Enhanced CT/MRI

Objectives: To investigate the combined use of ultrasound together with clinical features to differentiate infantile hepatic hemangioma (IHH) from other focal liver lesions (FLLs) in children and to compare the efficacy of the combined method to that of CECT/MRI. Methods: The location, number, size and appearance of the tumors were evaluated in 45 children with IHH. Another 45 children with FLL were randomly selected as a control group. Independent factors for predicting IHH versus FLLs were evaluated. The diagnostic performance of the clinical and ultrasound features was compared with CECT/MRI. Results: Compared with the control FLL group, the IHH group had a younger age at diagnosis (P = 0.008), lower alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels (P = 0.000), smaller lesion sizes (P = 0.000), and a higher tumor proportion with a resistance index (RI) of 0.05). Conclusions: CECT/MRI was the effective diagnostic indicator for IHH. However, the combined clinical and ultrasound diagnoses, including age at diagnosis, lesion size, RI and AFP, can achieve the same effectiveness as CECT/MRI. © 2018