Abstract #2083

Ex-Vivo MR Imaging of Excised Human Livers as a New Method to Reliably Co-Localize Nodules and Nodule Components on Imaging and Pathology: Preliminary 6-Month Experience

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