Two- and three-dimensional contrast-enhanced sonography for assessment of renal tumor vasculature: Preliminary observations

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to show potential applications of 2-dimensional (2D) and 3-dimensional (3D) contrast-enhanced sonography for assessment of the vascularity of benign and malignant renal tumors. Methods: Sixty-eight patients with renal tumors were examined with both 2D and reconstructed 3D contrast-enhanced sonography. The contrast enhancement characteristics of benign and malignant renal tumors were compared on both 2D and 3D contrastenhanced sonograms. The diagnoses of the lesions were made by surgical pathologic examination in 50 patients and by contrast-enhanced computed tomography in 18 patients. Results: Both 2D and 3D contrast-enhanced sonography showed hypoenhancement with a few small peritumoral feeding blood vessels and regular intratumoral branches in 18 benign tumors, whereas hyperenhancement with multiple irregular peritumoral feeding vessels and tortuous intratumoral branches was shown in 50 malignant tumors. Compared to 2D contrast-enhanced sonography, 3D contrast-enhanced sonography displayed more intratumoral microvessels and spatial distributions, especially for the vessel network, and tortuous branches in the malignant tumors. Compared to 2D contrastenhanced sonography, 3D contrast-enhanced sonography was better for detecting and displaying renal tumor vascularity, with a statistically significant difference (P < .05). Conclusions: Reconstructed 3D contrast-enhanced sonography is a useful complementary tool in addition to 2D contrast-enhanced sonography for assessing the characteristics and distribution of blood vascularity in renal tumors. © 2013 by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.