Table 1.
Clinical differential diagnosis of the most common liver masses
| Cirrhotic liver | Common lesions | Non-cirrhotic liver | Common lesions | |
| Malignant mass | Hepatocellular carcinoma | a,d | Metastasis | a,b |
| Cholangiocarcinoma | Well differentiated HCC | |||
| High grade dysplastic nodule | Fibro lamellar HCC | a,b,c,g | ||
| Lymphoma | Cholangiocarcinoma | |||
| Metastasis (exceptional) | Hemangio-Endothelioma | g | ||
| Lymphoma | ||||
| Melanoma | ||||
| Neuroendocrine tumor | a | |||
| Sarcoma (angiosarcoma,leiomyosarcoma) | g | |||
| Benign mass | Low grade dysplasia | d | Hemangioma | b |
| Focal fatty liver | Focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) | a,b | ||
| Hemangioma | Hepatic adenoma (HA) | a,b | ||
| Hepatic adenoma | g | Nodular regenerative hyperplasia | b,f | |
| Partial nodular transformation | e,f | |||
| Focal fatty infiltration | c,e | |||
| Bile duct adenoma |
a: Hyper vascular liver tumor; b: Tumors that are extremely rare in cirrhosis but relatively frequent in healthy normal liver; c: Tumors frequent in the left lobe; d: Mainly in cirrhosis; e: Equally found in cirrhotic and non cirrhotic; f: Clinically mimics cirrhosis; g: Extremely rare tumors.