Correlation between calcified liver metastases and histopathology of primary colorectal carcinoma in Chinese

Abstract

The study examined the association between calcified liver metastases and the histopathology of the primary colorectal carcinoma in Chinese. The clinical, pathological and CT data were retrospectively analyzed in 210 patients (mean age: 54.2 years) with liver metastases from colorectal carcinoma. Plain CT scanning and contrast-enhanced scanning were performed in all the patients. For the contrast-enhanced examination, iohexol was injected by using a high pressure syringe at a flow rate of 2.5–3.0 mL/s. The arterial phase lasted approximately 25 s and the portal venous phase about 60 s. All patients had no history of chronic liver diseases and had never received interventional treatments. χ²-test was used to analyze the rate of calcification in the liver metastasis from colorectal cancer of different differentiation degrees. Among the 210 cases of liver metastases, 22 patients (10.5%) were found to have calcified liver metastases on CT scan. Two patients with calcified liver metastasis received lumpectomy and developed calcification in recurrent tumors. Another two patients had calcification in newly developed tumor masses. And the calcification in the newly developed masses was similar to that of their primary counterparts in terms of morphology and distribution. On the enhanced CT scan, the tumors exhibited no enhancement during hepatic arterial phase and showed slight rim enhancement during portal venous scan in the 22 cases. The calcification became obscure on contrast-enhanced scans. Histopathologically, the primary tumors were well-differentiated adenocarcinoma in 6 cases, moderately-differentiated adenocarcinoma in 10, poorly-differentiated adenocarcinoma in 4 and mucinous adenocarcinoma in 2 among the 22 cases. No statistical correlation was noted between the incidence of calcified liver metastasis and the pathological subtypes and differentiation degrees of the primary colorectal carcinoma. It was concluded that calcified liver metastases may result from colorectal adenocarcinomata of different differentiation degrees or mucinous adenocarcinomata in Chinese population. There is no correlation between calcification of liver metastases and the pathological subtype of the primary colorectal carcinoma in Chinese, which is different from the findings that calcified metastases were associated with colorectal mucinous adenocarcinoma in other ethnic groups.

Keywords

colorectal carcinoma / liver metastases / calcification / tomography / X-ray computed tomography / pathology

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