Abstract:
Background: Liver biopsy is useful in making diagnosis, assessing the
prognosis of liver diseases and in making decisions for therapeutic
management. Interventional radiology is a rapidly growing subspecialty, with
very few personnel, more so in developing countries.
Objective: To describe the imaging patterns of liver diseases diagnosed by
ultrasound guided liver biopsies at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.
Design: Cross sectional study
Setting: Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), Radiology and Imaging
Department and Histopathology laboratory over one-year period from July 1st
2013 to June 30th 2014
Subjects: All consenting patients referred for ultrasound guided liver biopsy
were studied with a sample size of 36 patients.
Results: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was the commonest pathology that
was diagnosed (n=21). Most HCC lesions were larger than 5cm (n=18, 90%) and
85% of these lesions were heterogeneous on ultrasonography.
Conclusions: Hepatocellular carcinoma larger than 5cm and heterogenous in
pattern is the commonest liver lesion diagnosed in Moi Teaching & Referral
Hospital. A larger study is recommended.
