Guidelines for the Diagnosis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

摘要

The advent of screening for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has led to an increase in detection of small lesions in the liver, which may or may not be HCC. The groups of patients who require screening are listed in Table 1. Furthermore, early HCC may not show the typical radiologic or histologic features of HCC. In 2005 the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease issued guidelines for the management of HCC. Among these was an algorithm, developed on the basis of expert opinion, for the diagnosis of HCC. This algorithm was meant mainly to be used in screen-detected lesions, but it came to be more widely applicable, and the guidelines have since been validated and improved upon.