Liver tumours with extrahepatic location are uncommon. They show specific CT criteria with respect to blood supply. Various CT criteria have been analysed in 10 tumours, including three hepatocellular adenomas, two focal nodular hyperplasias, four cavernous haemangiomas and one hepatocellular carcinoma. Correct diagnosis was obtained only in haemangiomas with their characteristic hyperdense blood pools, and in one hepatocellular carcinoma. CT criteria of the ten pedunculated tumours are discussed, to with the aim of adding to our knowledge of the diagnostic relevance of CT.

Sporadic informations in the literature that by means of CT of the thorax by far smaller intrapulmonary foci can be recognized in comparison to the conventional x-ray examination are just to be confirmed. With the help of instances the indication for thorax CT in germinal testicular tumours is presented. The evidence and exclusion, respectively, of pulmonary metastases are of decisive importance actually for the therapy and prognosis in patients with germinal testicular tumours. In this respect our observations confirm the indications for a CT-examination of the thorax in these groups of patients.

The paper analyses the findings of a CT study of 21 lesions of focal nodular hyperplasia in 17 patients. In addition to subjective valuatin of the dynamic studies, densitometric measurements on a time basis were carried out (gamma-fit curves) and a density profile was obtained. These tumour-like lesions show typical density changes with rapid enhancement in the arterial phase and rapid fall in density after one or two minutes. Various patterns of the hyperdense lesions (non-homogeneous, those resembling vessels or homogeneous lesions) may be of significance in differential diagnosis. Atypical density patterns were found particularly in foci projecting from the liver.

147 CT guided fine-needle biopsies of the pancreas were carried out on 141 patients (45 malignant tumours, 79 chronic pancreatitis and pancreas without lesions, respectively). In 23 pseudocysts a malignant lesion could be excluded. By analysing the remaining 124 biopsies (non-cystic targets) an overall accuracy of 79%, a sensitivity of 71% and a specificity of 84% in differentiating between benign and malignant lesions were obtained. By excluding 12% of biopsies with no diagnostic material, an overall accuracy of 90% might be recorded. The comparison between the number of aspirates per examination and the cytological diagnoses would indicate that a minimum of four aspirates is required for satisfactory results.

In the diagnosis of expansive lesions of the pancreas, liver, kidneys, lymph nodes and other organs, percutaneous fine needle aspiration biopsy has proved its value. For small objects computed tomography is particularly suitable as a localization aid. This article reports on the diagnostic advantages of CT and biopsy in the diagnosis of lesions of the adrenals, demonstrated by 6 selected examples of small tumours, 5 of them smaller than 2 cm., and 1 smaller than 3 cm. The cytological diagnosis of an adrenal adenoma in 5 patients and a metastasis in one provided an important contribution towards therapy and prognosis.

Twelve years of experience with paravascular percutaneous biopsy of iliac lymph nodes is described. The technique has been performed in 150 patients with equivocal lymphographic diagnoses or with clinical symptoms of malignant disease without peripheral lymphadenopathy. The method is simple and has few complications. No diagnosis has proved to be falsee positive, while in eight per cent of the cases fals negative diagnoses were found. In nine per cent of the patients the results were unacceptable for technical reasons. The method is useful only for biopsy of external iliac lymph nodes. A further study has been initiated to compare the results of the paravascular and the transperitoneal biopsy techniques.