Objective: Our purpose was to assess the capacity of contrast-enhanced second-harmonic sonography to detect a pseudocapsule in renal masses compared with conventional gray-scale sonography. SUBJECTS AND METHODS. Thirty-two patients with 40 renal masses suspicious for renal cancer (mean diameter, 3.1 cm) were prospectively studied with contrast-enhanced second-harmonic sonography during IV administration of a second-generation sonographic contrast agent. The sonographic criteria for the presence of a pseudocapsule were a peritumoral hypoanechoic halo on conventional gray-scale imaging and a rim of perilesional enhancement, increasing in the tardive phase of the examination, on contrast-enhanced second-harmonic imaging. Multiphasic helical CT or dynamic MRI or both were performed in all patients.
Results: Final diagnoses of the 40 renal masses were as follows: hemorrhagic cysts, five; angiomyolipomas, four; lymphomas, four; metastasis from lung cancer, one; and renal cell carcinomas (RCCs), 26. Histologic diagnosis of RCC was surgically obtained in all patients. Nephron-sparing surgery was performed in 12 of 26 RCCs, and radical nephrectomy was performed in the remaining 14. At pathologic examination, pseudocapsule was found in 14 (53.8%) of 26 RCCs. On conventional sonography, the presence of a pseudocapsule was detected in 3 of 14 RCCs (sensitivity, 21%). Sonographic contrast-enhanced harmonic imaging revealed the presence of pseudocapsule in 12 of 14 RCCs (sensitivity, 85.7%). In the remaining 12 RCCs with either absent or extensive neoplastic infiltration of pseudocapsule seen at pathologic evaluation, pseudocapsule was not visible on either conventional or contrast-enhanced second-harmonic sonography. The pseudocapsule was not visible in any of the 14 noncancerous renal masses on either conventional or contrast-enhanced sonography.
Conclusion: Sonographic contrast-specific imaging with a second-generation contrast agent is effective in improving the sonographic visualization of tumoral pseudocapsule. This finding could be useful both in the sonographic diagnosis and in the choice of conservative surgery for renal cell carcinoma. The potential role of second-harmonic contrast-enhanced sonography in the management of renal cell carcinoma should be investigated in larger series and compared with the findings of state-of-the-art MRI and CT.