Beaver Tail Liver: A Hepatic Morphology Variant

Beaver tail liver, or else known as the sliver of liver, is a rare anatomic variation of the liver where the left lobe of the liver extends laterally to contact and enwrap the spleen. A case is presented here where a middle-aged male presented with complaints of abdominal pain, hematuria, and fever. After the routine blood and urine examinations revealed urinary tract infection, CT abdomen was done to find out the etiology, and beaver tail liver was found incidentally with the left lobe of liver encircling the spleen. Sometimes it may be difficult to differentiate liver and spleen from each other when echogenicity or density on USG and CT are equivalent. More common in females, it may imitate a splenic trauma or a subcapsular hematoma, or a perisplenic hemorrhage within the splenic parenchyma.