MRI Assessment of Hepatocellular Carcinoma after Local-Regional Therapy: A Comprehensive Review.

Nearly 80% of cirrhotic patients diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are not eligible for surgical resection and instead undergo local-regional treatment. After therapy for HCC, patients undergo imaging surveillance to assess treatment efficacy and identify potential sites of progressive tumor elsewhere within the liver. Accurate interpretation of posttreatment imaging is essential for guiding further management decisions, and radiologists must understand expected treatment-specific imaging findings for each of the local-regional therapies. Of interest, expected imaging findings seen after radiation-based therapies (transarterial radioembolization and stereotactic body radiation therapy) are different than those seen after thermal ablation and transarterial chemoembolization. Given differences in expected posttreatment imaging findings, the current radiologic treatment response assessment algorithms used for HCC (modified Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors classification, European Association for the Study of Liver Diseases criteria, and Liver Imaging and Reporting Data System Treatment Response Algorithm) must be applied cautiously for radiation-based therapies in which persistent arterial phase hyperenhancement in the early posttreatment period is common and expected. This article will review the concept of tumor response assessment for HCC, the forms of local-regional therapy for HCC, and the expected posttreatment findings for each form of therapy. Keywords: Abdomen/GI, Liver, MR-Imaging, Treatment Effects, Tumor Response © RSNA, 2020.

Essentials of Spine Trauma Imaging: Radiographs, CT, and MRI.

Traumatic injuries of the spine portend long-term morbidity and mortality. Timely diagnosis and appropriate management of mechanical instability of the spine is of utmost importance in preventing further neurologic deterioration. We present a comprehensive review of the indications for spinal imaging in the trauma setting, describe each imaging modality including plain radiographs, multidetector computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, basic anatomy and common fracture patterns, and discuss the traditional spinal injury classification systems and the new Subaxial Cervical Spine Injury Classification and Thoracolumbar Injury Classification and Severity score.