CE-IOUS has been used during hepatobiliary surgery for almost 25 years. During this time, it has proven to be an excellent diagnostic tool for detecting and characterising previously unknown lesions.~It is still unclear to what extent the findings of this imaging modality impacts the strategy of such operations.~The currently planned study is intended to evaluate the impact of contrast-enhanced intraoperative ultrasound on the surgical procedure in hepatic surgery.~For this purpose, patient data of the time period between 2017 and 2019 was prospectively analysed.~Another aim of the study was to measure the outcome relevance of CE-IOUS. This assessment was carried out by comparing an intervention cohort with a control cohort. The control cohort consisted of patients that were operated due similar liver lesions as the intervention cohort however did not receive CE-IOUS during the operation. Aspects like the recurrence free time and overall survival rate of the two cohorts were compared together with the patients' characteristics of the groups themselves.
Contrast-enhanced intraoperative ultrasound (CE-IOUS) plays an increasingly important role in the surgical therapy planning of primary liver lesions as well as liver metastases.~The present study was designed to evaluate the significance of CE-IOUS by specificity and sensitivity and particularly the impact it exerts on the surgical strategy.~A secondary aim was assessing the outcome relevance of surgeries influenced by CE-IOUS.