Author information
1
Department of Radiology, NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, Illinois. Electronic address: rgore@uchicago.edu.
2
Department of Radiology, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, Madison, Wisconsin.
3
Department of Radiology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brookline, Massachusetts.
4
Department of Radiology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland.
5
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois.
6
Department of Medicine (Gastroenterology), NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, Illinois.
7
Department of Surgery, NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, Illinois.
8
Department of Radiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama.
9
Department of Radiology, Institute for Technology Assessment, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts.
Abstract
The ACR Committee on Incidental Findings presents recommendations for managing liver lesions that are incidentally detected on CT. These recommendations represent an update from the liver component of the ACR 2010 white paper on managing incidental findings in the pancreas, adrenal glands, kidneys, and liver. The Liver Subcommittee-which included five abdominal radiologists, one hepatologist, and one hepatobiliary surgeon-developed this algorithm. The recommendations draw from published evidence and expert opinion and were finalized by informal iterative consensus. Algorithm branches categorize liver lesions on the basis of patient characteristics and imaging features. They terminate with an assessment of benignity or a specific follow-up recommendation. The algorithm addresses most, but not all, pathologies and clinical scenarios. The goal is to improve the quality of care by providing guidance on how to manage incidentally detected liver lesions.