Karthik Ganesan1, Emil Achmad1, Irene Mwangi2, Chad Kohl2, Shalini Ananda2, Ana Almeida2, Manuel Rodriguez3, Michael Peterson4, Claude Sirlin2
1Liver Imaging Group, Department of Radiology, University of California San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA; 2Liver Imaging Group, Department of Radiology, University of California San Diego, USA; 3Liver Imaging Group, Department of Radiology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA; 4Department of Pathology, University of California San Diego, USA
MR imaging is used to detect, stage, and characterize liver nodules. However, MR is insensitive to small nodules and relatively unable to predict histological tumor grade. One obstacle to progress in the field is that presently there is no reliable method to spatially co-localize nodules and nodule components at MR imaging and at pathology. We have implemented a system in which liver specimens are imaged ex-vivo prior to pathology sectioning. This system permits accurate image-guided tissue sampling and reliable radio-pathological correlation of small nodules and nodule components. This abstract describes our co-localization technique and our preliminary six-month experience