Dynamic Computed Tomography in Abdominal Tumors: New Aspects for Differential Diagnosis

Abstract

Computed tomography (CT) is a very useful modality in detection and differentiation of tumorous lesions (Baert et al. 1980). Apart from tumors where the exact diagnosis is possible because of a typical morphology or tissue density (e.g., lipomas, uncomplicated cysts, etc.), there are a great number of solid tumorlike lesions where it is nearly impossible to distinguish inflammatory or tumorous, benign or malignant tissues in plain CT. But now the combination of intravascular injection of water-soluble contrast media (CM) and dynamic CT, i.e., a continuous scanning technique, provides the possibility of studying the pharmacokinetics of the CM and thus a more specific identification of tissues seems to be possible (Dean et al. 1978; Kormano and Dean 1976; Young et al. 1980).