ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Imaging and Image-directed Interventions
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1616755
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancing Cancer Imaging Technologies: Bridging the Gap from Research to Clinical PracticeView all 18 articles
Imaging Features of CT and MR in Hepatic Perivascular Epithelioid Cell Tumor: Case Series and Literature Review
Provisionally accepted
- Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
To retrospectively analyze the clinical and imaging data of 4 patients with hepatic PEComa of different pathological grades, and to review relevant literature, aiming to enhance clinical awareness of this disease and provide support for preoperative diagnosis. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on 4 cases of patients with hepatic PEComa who were confirmed by surgery and biopsy in our hospital. All patients had complete clinical data, including laboratory tests, abdominal imaging studies, as well as pathological and immunohistochemical examinations. Results Four cases of hepatic PEComa were identified. All patients were female, aged between 51 and 62 years. The largest diameter of the lesions ranged from 2.4 cm to 20.0 cm. All four lesions presented a round or oval shape with well-defined margins. Three lesions showed homogeneous density/signal, while one lesion displayed heterogeneous density with extensive necrosis. All four cases had a rich blood supply, characterized by significant enhancement in the arterial phase. In two cases, curved and dilated feeding arteries were observed at the periphery of the lesions, and in one case, early visualization of the hepatic vein occurred during the arterial phase. Immunohistochemical staining was positive for HMB45 (+/++), Melan-A (+/++), and SMA (+/++) in all four cases. Conclusion Hepatic PEComa is a rare tumor with no typical clinical manifestations, and laboratory tests usually show no significant abnormalities. CT and MRI are valuable in preoperative diagnosis. When a lesion exhibits prominent arterial phase enhancement along with thickened and tortuous vessels, and there are no specific findings in the clinical history and laboratory tests, hepatic PEComa should be included in the differential diagnosis.
Keywords: Liver, PEComas, CT, MR, hepatic
Received: 23 Apr 2025; Accepted: 24 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Liu, Chen, Kang, Zhou and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Ning Li, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China
Jing Zhou, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China
Janhua Wang, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.