Objective To explore the application value of CT and MRI in the diagnosis of the residual and recurrent lesion of primary liver cancer after interventional therapy. Methods A total of 60 cases of PHC patients treated in our hospital from June 2015 to June 2017 were selected for the study with a total of 84 lesions, and all the patients were given review after 2-6 months of the transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). The CT, MRI and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) were performed. The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity of the diagnosis of the residues and recurrence lesion and the detection rate of the capsule were analyzed by CT and MRI examination, by taking the DSA as the gold standard. Results The accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of lesion residues and recurrence were 79.76%, 72.58% and 100.00% respectively by CT and were 94.05%, 91.94% 100.00% by MRI, and the accuracy and sensitivity of MRI diagnosis were significantly higher than those by CT (P<0.05). The detection rate of the lesion tumor capsule by CT was significantly lower than that by MRI (3.57% vs 10.71%) (P<0.05). Conclusion MRI has the high accuracy of efficacy diagnosis for PHC patients after TACE, which is significantly better than the CT diagnosis.