1991 Volume 32 Issue 6 Pages 657-663
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is usually hyperintense on T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and there have been no reports on HCC presenting a hypointense signal on T2-weighted MR images. We, however, encountered 2 cases of HCC with hypointense signals on T2-weighted MR images. Their main tumors measured 29×22mm in Case 1 and 30×25mm in Case 2. These tumor showed high signal intensity on inversion recovery (IR) images, and low signal intensity on T2-weighted spin echo (SE) images in both cases. Aithough the tumors were histologically identified as typical HCC of Edmondson's grade I-II, and they showed no specific features characteristic of such signal hypointensity when stained with HE, the cytoplasm of these tumors was found to have black pigments of copper when stained with rubeanic acid. These rusults suggested that hypointense signals of HCC on T2-weighted images were closely related to copper deposition.
