What is the most common benign tumor of the liver?

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The most common benign tumor of the liver is cavernous hemangioma, a vascular malformation made up of dilated, blood-filled vascular spaces. Most of these lesions are incidental and cause no symptoms, with normal liver tests because they don’t impair liver function. Imaging is typically diagnostic: on ultrasound they appear well-defined and often bright, while CT or MRI shows peripheral nodular enhancement in the arterial phase that gradually fills in toward the center on delayed phases; on MRI they’re usually very bright on T2-weighted images. Because they are benign and often stable, the usual approach is observation unless the lesion is very large, symptomatic, or there is diagnostic uncertainty. In contrast, focal nodular hyperplasia is another benign tumor but less common; hepatic adenoma is associated with risks such as hemorrhage and, rarely, malignant transformation; hepatocellular carcinoma is a malignant tumor.