[Treatment of small hepatocarcinomas by percutaneous ultrasound-guided alcohol injections. Personal experience in 14 lesions].

From May 1988 to March 1990, 57 patients with focal solid lesions of the liver underwent percutaneous US-guided fine-needle biopsy which demonstrated the primitive neoplastic nature of these tumors--mainly trabecular hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Eight of these patients affected with chronic liver disease presented with 14 lesions (less than 3 cm phi); they were considered inoperable and therefore treated with percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI) under US guidance. Three to eleven sessions of PEI (total: 78) were administered to each nodule, according to nodular size and to modality of ethanol distribution within the tumor. All these lesions showed post-treatment US and CT structural changes of fibronecrotic degeneration: the final fine-needle biopsy demonstrated the absence of malignant cells in all cases. Today all patients are alive and 7 present no recurrences of HCC on US and CT scans; the follow-up period was 18 months for 3 patients and 12, 9, 6, and 3 months for the extant 4 patients, respectively. The nodules have a smaller diameter than the primitive tumors. In conclusion PEI, besides being a simple and cheap method, is also readily available and effective for the treatment of small inoperable hepatocellular carcinomas.