The Radiology team have been working on the new national changes for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Surveillance since the summer. The surveillance is essential for high risk patients, such as those with cirrhosis or chronic hepatitis B virus infection.

The first step was to get the new national requesting code in place and letting requesting clinicians and sonographers know about the change. This was done through a series of face to face sessions which has built a good working relationship to help bring in the new changes, and were held up to the launch. Sessions helped clarify risk factors, why surveillance is needed, and gave a joint approach to agreeing the reporting template.

Radiology Advanced Practitioner, Catherine Allen, said: “I felt it was important that these sessions were held face to face to give chance for discussion and for staff to ask any questions or address any queries.

“For the launch day of the reporting template, one of my colleagues, Charlotte Thompson, suggested making a liver cake*. I am never one to turn down a challenge I spent a Sunday afternoon crafting a liver cake (pictured), complete with vessels! As you can see one of the team managed to perform an excellent resection.

“It was only after the cake was eaten they let on that they were concerned that there could have been focal lesions baked within the cake….an idea I didn’t think of until later!”

Just a few months later and the new code and reporting template are both working well and are liked by both sonographers and clinicians.

Catherine adds: “Because of the good working relationship we have with the liver team any queries we have had have been easily and quickly addressed. Thank you to everyone who has been involved.”

*no livers were used in the making of the cake.