Abstract: Objective The aim of this study was to compare contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) manifestation differences in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and hepatic hemangioma (HH). Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on the clinical data of 95 patients with liver space-occupying lesions between January 2020 and December 2021, and all patients underwent hepatectomy, having pathologically confirmed diagnosis, e.g. HCC in 51 cases and HH in 44 cases. All patients underwent CEUS examination before operation, and the arrival time (AT), time to peak (TTP), peak enhancement intensity, enhancement rate and 50% gradient of slope were obtained and compared between the two groups. The diagnostic performance of CEUS for liver space-occupying lesions was analyzed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results The conventional ultrasonography showed that the percentages of clear edge, hyperecho, regular shape and even intratumor echo in cancerous foci were 19.6%, 21.6%, 17.7% and 13.7%, all significantly lower than 68.2%, 65.9%, 72.7% and 75.0%(P<0.05) in HH foci, and the grade Ⅱ and Ⅲ blood signals in cancerous lesions were 68.6% and 17.7%, both significantly higher than 11.4% and 4.6%(P<0.05) in HH lesions; the rapid enhancement and hyperechoic tumor tissues in arterial phase was found, while in HH foci, there was a peripheral slow enhancement in early arterial phase, a centripetal filling enhancement in portal phase and an increased enhancement in delayed phase; the AT in cancerous lesions was (14.6±4.5) s, much longer than [(11.4±3.3)s, P<0.05], and the TTP was (36.8±9.7) s, significantly shorter than [(44.2±11.6) s, P<0.05] in HH lesions, the peak enhancement intensity and 50% gradient of slope were (8.8±2.5) and (0.4±0.2), significantly lower than [(12.5±3.6) and (0.9±0.4), P<0.05] in HH lesions, and the enhancement velocity was (0.8±0.3), much higher than [(0.6±0.2), P<0.05] in HH lesions; the ROC analysis showed that the sensitivity and the specificity were 92.5％ and 77.4％, when the combination of the AT, TTP, peak enhancement intensity, enhancement velocity and 50％ gradient of slope was applied to predict the quality of the space-occupying lesions of liver. Conclusion There are some different features of CEUS manifestations, which might help effectively differentiate lesions of HCC and HH.

Key words: Hepatoma, Hepatic hemangioma, Contrast-enhanced ultrasound, Arrival time, Time to peak, Diagnosis