Keywords:
Liver, Gastrointestinal tract, Abdomen, MR, Diagnostic procedure, Imaging sequences
Authors:
H. Leao Filho1, D. Belmonte1, T. Miranda1, A. Bordini1, L. Fabiana1, P. Clark2, W. Chua-anusorn2, M. de Souza Rocha1; 1Sao Paulo/BR, 2Perth/AU
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-1564
Aims and objectives
The quantification of hepatic steatosis in recent years showed a great improvement,
especially by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI),
initially by the use of spectroscopy techniques and finally with proton density fat fraction (PDFF) sequence.
This last technique allows the creation of a fat map,
with correction of several factors,
making it extremely easy and reliable to evaluate steatosis from pixel to pixel.
Among the main corrections of the PDFF analysis are the T1 and T2* relaxation.
The latter correction allows the evaluation of iron deposits in the liver,
obtained through a post-acquisition processing,
without the need for additional sequences.
The PDFF analysis can be obtained by the main commercial companies,
but it is not broadly disseminated in most services in our country.
Our objective was to evaluate the efficacy of a conventional volumetric Dixon sequence (IN and OUT phase) in quantifying liver fat in a group of NASH patients exhibiting a range of steatosis and R2 values.
The reason for this analysis was the greater availability of this sequence in most services and its comparison with more robust techniques such as PDFF.