Objective:To assess the clinical application value of transhepatic arterial contrast-enhanced ultrasonography in evaluating the therapeutic effect of transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).Methods:Thirty-eight patients with 48 lesions of HCC underwent TACE at the First Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital from September 2018 to February 2019. All of them underwent preoperative and postoperative transhepatic arterial contrast-enhanced ultrasonography to evaluate the therapeutic effect by observing the enhancement in tumor and drainage area. The outcomes of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) one month after TACE were used for comparison. The results of transhepatic arterial contrast-enhanced ultrasonography and MRI were compared by the χ2 test, and the Kappa test was used to evaluate the consistency of the results of transhepatic arterial contrast-enhanced ultrasonography and MRI.Results:The enhancement in tumor immediately after TACE was not different from the result of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) one month after TACE (P=0.289). The enhancement in tumor and drainage area immediately after TACE was not different from the outcomes of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) one month after TACE (P=1.000). The Kappa in observing the enhancement in tumor and drainage area was higher than that in observing the enhancement in tumor (0.780 vs 0.664, P＜0.001). The specificity, sensitivity, and accuracy in observing the enhancement in both tumor and drainage area were 84.2%, 93.1%, and 89.5%, respectively, which were higher than those in observing the enhancement in tumor alone (79.3%, 89.4%, and 83.3%).Conclusion:Transhepattic arterial contrast-enhanced ultrasonography could observe the enhancement in tumor and drainage area immediately after TACE, and has high clinical value in evaluating the therapeutic effect of TACE.

Objective:To investigate the feasibility of evaluating the effect of embolization by transhepatic arterial contrast-enhanced ultrasonography immediately after transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) to predict the short-term curative effect for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).Methods:A total of 50 HCC lesions in 39 patients treated by TACE underwent transhepatic artery contrast-enhanced ultrasonography before and immediately after operation at the First Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital from September 2018 to March 2019. According to the maximum area ratio of internal enhancement of the tumor after surgery and before surgery and the maximum covering ratio of drainage area before and after surgery, Spearman correlation analysis was used to compare MRI results within 1 to 3 months after TACE between groups.Results:The effect of embolization evaluated by immediate postoperative tumor enhancement ratio and postoperative covering ratio of drainage area was related to the short-term curative effect judged by modified response evalution criteria in solid tumors (mRECIST), and the postoperative covering ratio of drainage area had a more significant correlation (r=0.516, P＜0.001 and r=0.716, P＜0.001, respectively).Conclusion:The evaluation of embolization effect immediately after TACE by transhepatic artery contrast-enhanced ultrasonography has a high correlation with the short-term curative effect evaluated by mRECIST, which can provide a good imaging reference value for predicting the short-term curative effect after tumor operation.