Percutaneous sonographically guided saline-enhanced radiofrequency ablation of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Objective: The purpose of our study was to analyze the efficacy, side effects, and short-term complications of saline-enhanced percutaneous radiofrequency ablation performed under sonographic guidance in a series of cirrhotic patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. SUBJECTS AND METHODS. Between September 2000 and June 2002, 84 patients (55 men and 29 women) with cirrhosis who ranged in age from 48 to 74 years (mean age, 64 years) and who had 95 hepatocellular carcinomas (seven patients had two tumors and two patients had three tumors) were treated with high frequency-induced thermotherapy.

Complications after interventional sonography of focal liver lesions: a 22-year single-center experience.

Objective: To analyze the complications of diagnostic and therapeutic sonographically guided interventional procedures of focal liver lesions observed during a 22-year period in a single center.

Methods: Complications of sonographically guided diagnostic and therapeutic procedures on focal liver lesions, observed during a 22-year period in a single center, were reviewed. From 1979 to 2001, 13,222 patients (age range, 7-89 years; mean, 59 years; 8,688 male and 4,534 female) with 13,777 focal liver lesions underwent 16,648 sonographically guided biopsies and 3,035 therapeutic procedures: pyogenic and amebic abscess aspiration, ethanol injection of hydatid liver cysts, and percutaneous ablative treatments (ethanol injection in either multiple or one-shot sessions, radio frequency ablation, and interstitial laser photocoagulation) of primary and secondary liver tumors.