Are sonographic and radionuclide investigations alternative or complementary in diagnosing liver disease? A comparison between these methods and laparobiopsy

672 colloid scintiscans and 516 ultrasound tests were performed on patients with various widespread and localized hepatic diseases and with normal liver. These were compared with the final diagnosis obtained by means of laparobiopsy, in order to assess their diagnostic accuracy and to verify whether their roles are complementary or alternative. The specificity of ultrasonography (US) was significantly superior (p 80%), but US was also able to distinguish fluid from solid masses. These data suggest that the importance of these techniques in detecting diffuse liver diseases is poor and, therefore, in this field needle biopsy, either blind or guided during laparoscopy, remains the mainstay of diagnosis. On the other hand, the two non-invasive methods studied can be considered as valid alternative tools to laparobiopsy in focal hepatic lesions. In these forms US can really be an alternative method to radionuclide scanning because of its major specificity and the possibility of its providing final tissue diagnosis by means of echoguided fine-needle aspiration.