This study aims to investigate the feasibility and accuracy of Multi-Detector CT angiography acquired before Trans-arterial Chemo-embolization (TACE) in detecting Hepato-cellular carcinoma feeding vessels compared to DSA angiography acquired during TACE.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) represents the sixth most common cancer worldwide. Trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE) is a palliative treatment for patients with HCC who are not candidates for transplantation, surgical resection, or loco-regional ablation. This minimally invasive procedure allows delivery of a high concentration of particles and/or chemotherapeutic agents into the liver, causing ischemic cell death and permitting local delivery of high concentrations of chemotherapeutic drug. Selective administration of chemo-embolic material to the tumor is desired, where possible, to increase the effectiveness of treatment to the tumor and minimize injury to surrounding liver tissue. Tumor detection and assessment of the tumor-feeding vessel(s) are important for an effective treatment, while limiting non-target embolization. Usually, selection of the tumor-feeding vessels during TACE has been guided by 2D digital subtraction angiography (DSA). However; this method has a disadvantage of occasional misinterpretation of tumor-feeding vessels due to superimposition of vessels. To prevent such misinterpretation, multiple selective injections and oblique projections are performed during TACE with consequent increase in procedure time, volume of injected contrast material, and radiation doses. A relatively new approach using three-dimensional (3D) cone-beam CT angiography during TACE is reported to be extremely helpful, especially in cases of complex hepatic arterial anatomy. However, the time required for processing and evaluating this 3D angiography images may discourage its routine use by intervention radiologists because it requires either a sterile remote control for in-room review or the operator exit from the angiographic room to access a workstation. A new automatic specifically designed softwares has been developed for detection of feeding vessels after Cone beam CT, but these softwares are not widely available. Multiphasic contrast enhanced CT is one of the recommended imaging tools for diagnosis of HCC and is routinely done before TACE. There are few reports on the application of Multi-Detector CT angiography for detection of HCC feeding vessels before TACE. This study aims to investigate the feasibility and accuracy of Multi-Detector CT angiography for assessment of tumor-feeding vessel in patients planned for TACE compared to DSA angiography acquired during TACE.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
70
Multiphasic CT within 4 weeks interval prior to TACE will be done including non-enhanced, arterial, portal and venous phases using IV bolus injection of a 75-100-mLiodinated contrast material iopamidol at a rate of 3.0 mL/s. The images of arterial phase will be transferred to workstation to produce 3D angiographic reconstruction images .
Percutaneous arterial access is achieved through the common femoral artery (19 G needle) under local anesthesia with placement of a 5-Fr sheath. A 5-Fr Cobra (C2) or sidewinder (SIM1) catheter was used for catheterizing the coeliac trunk and SMA. Then celiac and superior mesenteric angiography was done by injecting 24 mL of iopamidol using forced manual injection method or using a pump at a rate of 6 mL/s according to the operator preferences.Then a microcatheter was used for selective and super-selective access of the hepatic arteries. The micro-catheter was placed in the feeding artery as close as possible to the tumor.The chemotherapeutic drugs (Doxorubicin 50 mg) solved within 5 ml of iodinated non-ionic contrast media and then mixed with 10 ml of iodized oil (lipiodol) will be delivered through the feeding hepatic artery and then embolized using Poly-vinyl Alcohol (PVA) particles.
Assiut Universtiy Hospital; Alrajhy Liver institute
Asyut, Egypt
feeding vessels detectability
The observers will evaluate DSA images of the celiac, superior mesenteric artery (SMA), common hepatic artery (CHA), right or left hepatic arteries obtained during TACE and record possible feeding arteries. Observers will be blind to additional angio-grams obtained during TACE i.e selective DSA images of the segmental arteries and feeding arteries. observers will then evaluate the CT 3D images and record possible feeding arteries. The ''ground truth'' (GT) will be the gold standard tool and is obtained after completing the above mentioned analyses by allowing the observers to evaluate by consensus pre-embolization CT 2D and 3D images, all acquired DSA images during TACE , and post-lipiodol injection CT images if available. GT was used to define true-positive, false-positive, false-negative and true negative feeding vessels.
Time frame: Baseline
inter-observer agreement
Interobserver variability was assessed using kappa statistics. Interobserver agreement was defined as excellent, fair to good, and poor by kappa values of \>0.75, 0.40-0.75, and \<0.40, respectively. for each technique.
Time frame: Baseline
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