Liver scanning in surgical practice

Abstract

Liver scanning is a simple, safe investigation which can be of value in several clinical situations commonly encountered in surgical practice:— The differential diagnosis of upper abdominal masses.The differential diagnosis of hepatomegaly.The differential diagnosis of jaundice.The detection of right subphrenic abscess.The detection of focal intrahepatic lesions, and the screening of patients with malignant disease.The response of hepatic metastases to therapy. In the detection of focal intrahepatic lesions an overall accuracy of about 90 per cent was achieved in our series of 185 scans. Clinical findings were suggestive in 57 per cent and liver-function tests in 48 per cent of the patients.