【Objective】 To investigate the predictive value of preoperative Gd- EOB- DTPA enhanced MRI in the expression of cytokeratin 19（CK19）in hepatocellular carcinoma（HCC）.【Methods】A total of 102 patients，including 94 male and 8 female，with single HCC confirmed by pathology after operation who underwent preoperative enhanced MRI were retrospectively analyzed. A total of 25 were CK19-positive HCC and 77 were CK19-negative HCC. Two radiologists evaluated MR features including tumor size，tumor margin，intratumoral vessels，signal intensity（SI）on arterial phase （AP） ，enhancement pattern ，arterial rim enhancement ，peritumoral enhancement ，internal cystic or necrotic portion，hemorrhage，intratumoral fat，tumor capsule，vascular invasion，lymph node metastasis，intratumoral septum， target sign on diffusion weighted imaging（DWI）or hepatobiliary phase（HBP），peritumor hypointensity，SI on ADC，SI on HBP ，T1 relaxation times and T1 reduction rate between pre- and post- contrast enhancement. The associations between these imaging features and CK19 expression were investigated. 【Results】SI on AP（P = 0.013），arterial rim enhancement（P = 0.018），target sign on DWI（P = 0.001）and target sign on HBP（P = 0.005）were significantly associated with CK19 expression. Delayed enhanced intratumoral septum（P = 0.042）was associated with CK19 expression between HCCs less than 5 cm. Target sign on DWI（P = 0.001，OR = 4.875，95%CI：1.838~12.927）were independent significant factors of CK19- positive HCC.【Conclusion】Preoperative enhanced MRI with Gd- EOB- DTPA is helpful to predict CK19 expression of HCC.