Non-invasive Hepatic Fat Quantification: Can Multi-echo Dixon Help?

Overview

Journal Radiol Bras

Specialty Radiology

Date 2024 Jul 12

PMID 38993969

Authors

Akarshi Gupta

Rashmi Dixit

Anjali Prakash

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of multi-echo Dixon magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in hepatic fat quantification, in comparison with that of magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), on 3.0-T MRI.

Materials And Methods: Fifty-five adults with no known liver disease underwent MRI in a 3.0-T scanner for determination of the hepatic fat fraction, with two techniques: multi-echo Dixon, in a manually drawn region of interest (ROI) and in the entire liver parenchyma (automated segmentation); and MRS. The diagnostic accuracy and cutoff value for multi-echo Dixon were determined, with MRS being used as the reference standard.

Results: The mean fat fraction obtained by multi-echo Dixon in the manually drawn ROI and in the entire liver was 5.2 ± 5.8% and 6.6 ± 5.2%, respectively, whereas the mean hepatic fat fraction obtained by MRS was 5.7 ± 6.4%. A very strong positive correlation and good agreement were observed between MRS and multi-echo Dixon, for the ROI (r = 0.988, r = 0.978, < 0.001) and for the entire liver parenchyma (r = 0.960, r = 0.922, < 0.001). A moderate positive correlation was observed between the hepatic fat fraction and body mass index of the participants, regardless of the fat estimation technique employed.

Conclusion: For hepatic fat quantification, multi-echo Dixon MRI demonstrated a very strong positive correlation and good agreement with MRS (often considered the gold-standard noninvasive technique). Because multi-echo Dixon MRI is more readily available than is MRS, it can be used as a rapid tool for hepatic fat quantification, especially when the hepatic fat distribution is not homogeneous.

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