ULTRASOUND IN DIAGNOSIS OF HEPATIC PATHOLOGIES A review of two years experience in University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Nigeria

We have tried to evaluate the diagnostic yield of abdominal sonology for detection of liver pathologies by reviewing the ultrasonic findings in our department over a period of two years. Analysis of 879 patients that underwent abdominal sonography between 2001 and 2002 revealed relative incidences of liver, renal, splenic, pancreatic and cholecystic pathologies. 43 cases out of those clinically suspected to have pathology related to liver, were ultrasonically negative. Evaluation of the 289 patients with positive ultrasound findings for liver pathology revealed that 46% of them were clinically suspected to have liver related pathologies while 54% were not clinically suspected. Specific types of liver disorders investigated over this period were hepatomegaly, cirrhosis, fatty degeneration, hepatoma, metastatic deposits and liver abscess. Of these the most commonly associated finding with detectable liver pathology was ascities. Our analysis suggests the liver sonology is useful for confirming clinically suspected cases of liver pathology and for revealing false positive and false negative liver cases.