Hepatic angiomyolipoma

Abstract

The imaging and pathological appearances of a hepatic angiomyolipoma are presented. On ultrasound (US), the mass was well-defined and echogenic. On computed tomography (CT), the lesion appeared of soft tissue density with peripheral foci of lower density. The case illustrates the difficulty of detecting the fatty content of a tumor by CT when the fatty content represents only a small portion of the lesion. Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) cytology and needle biopsy did not yield diagnostic material, and the tumor was resected.

Spontaneous rupture of a hepatic angiomyolipoma: CT findings and literature review

“…Hepatic angiomyolipoma is usually identified in adult women and its size may range from microscopic to giant [17,27]; most are asymptomatic and incidentally discovered, whereas few cases [8,13,16,26] presented with pain which was relieved after tumor resection.…”

“…The detection of small fat densities ( < -20 HU) is extremely important in the evaluation of hepatic focal lesions, but only the pathologic analysis may distinguish among the various fat-density neoplasms, especially if the patient does not have a history of tuberous sclerosis [16]. Moreover, small angiomyolipomas may contain small amounts of fat making them indistinguishable from other nonlipomatous tumors of the liver [4,7,16,17,26].…”

“…Moreover, small angiomyolipomas may contain small amounts of fat making them indistinguishable from other nonlipomatous tumors of the liver [4,7,16,17,26].…”

Hepatic angiomyolipoma: Is fat in the liver friend or foe?

“…Larger lesions demonstrated the typical appearance of fat and large intratumoral vessels (the socalled "macroaneurysms") detected by MRI, post-enhanced CT, and potentially by color Doppler ultrasound. In smaller lesions (approximately less than 4 cm in size), the amount of fat contained in an AML may be too small to be detected by imaging, making small AMLs nonspecific lesions, apt for biopsy [2][3][4]. One can speculate if the lack of distinguishable fat is due to the small size of the tumor or the relatively small fat content compared to muscular and vascular components.…”

Angiomiolipoma epitelioide hepático

“…El AML es un tumor mesenquimal hepático benigno poco frecuente. Cuando aparece en el contexto de una esclerosis tuberosa puede ser múltiple y se asocia a AML renales 5 . Fuera de esta entidad se presenta como una lesión hepática única.…”