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Pseudocirrhosis

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The following is a 65-year-old female who

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is getting an MRI for restaging purposes.

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So we'll start off by looking at

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the T2-weighted sequences and some

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of the T1 post-contrast sequences.

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And both on the T2-weighted sequence

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and the T1 FATSAT post-contrast sequence,

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performed in the arterial phase, we can see

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that the liver has a very nodular contour.

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So if I trace the liver border here and I

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go across it, very lumpy, bumpy, very nodular.

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And this is also seen, perhaps to a lesser

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degree on the arterial phase image here,

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but certainly there are findings of cirrhosis.

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And so this patient has cirrhosis and

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we've seen examples of what that looks

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like in the past few video vignettes.

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However, it is quite telling to see what this

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patient looked like a year prior to this exam.

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And if we were to do that, we can see that

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About a year ago, the patient did not quite

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have that nodular contour that we see.

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So that's something that's developed

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in about 12 months' time.

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Relatively smooth border.

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What we see within the inside of the

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liver are numerous liver lesions.

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We can see something over here, something over

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here, something over here, something over here.

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Many of them are quite small.

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On the T2-weighted sequences,

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they're relatively bright.

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On the T1 FATSAT post-contrast

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sequence, we see that they enhance.

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And so the added history in this patient is

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this patient has a history of breast cancer.

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Breast cancer with all these liver lesions

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turning out to be liver metastases.

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And over the course of treating these

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liver metastases, the patient has

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developed a cirrhotic liver morphology.

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And this is known as pseudocirrhosis.

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So this is an entity that has been

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classically been described in the setting

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of treated breast cancer mets to the liver.

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Now it's important to remember that we

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can see it with other primaries, so not

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just with breast, but classically it's

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been described with treated breast cancer.

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It's also been described in patients

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who've had a marked desmoplastic

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response to their metastatic disease

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who have not undergone treatment.

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So, classically we treat breast cancer, but

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also described in a few different settings,

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and these patients can also develop signs of

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portal hypertension, as has been discussed

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previously, including ascites, portal systemic

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collaterals, varices, splenomegaly, etc.

Report

Faculty

Mahan Mathur, MD

Associate Professor, Division of Body Imaging; Vice Chair of Education, Dept of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

Yale School of Medicine

Tags

Non-infectious Inflammatory

Neoplastic

MRI

Liver

Gastrointestinal (GI)

Body

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