Non alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common causes of chronic liver disease with a prevalance worldwide of 6-35% (1). The histologic spectrum includes simple steatosis, steatosis with inflammation and steatohepatitis. Steatohepatitis can advance to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Liver biopsy is the gold standard method to diagnose or exclude NAFLD and to determine the extent of liver damage. However, distribution of fat is often nonuniform and the site of sampling may lead to inaccurate results. Additionally, liver biopsy is an...

Patient population This prospective study was approved by the institutional review board with waivers of the informed consent. Sixty-five patients with clinical diagnosis of NAFLD were consulted to our department for quantification of liver fat. After MR imaging, 10 patients were excluded due to morphologic findings consistent with chronic liver disease. The control group consisted of 21 healthy volunteers without any laboratory, imaging and clinical findings indicative of any liver disease. Thus, a total of 76 patients were enrolled in this prospective study (61 women,...

T1 relaxation times in steatosis group were significantly longer than in control group (p<0.05) (Table 2) (Figure 2). The cutoff values, sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for MOLLI 5(3)3, MOLLI 3(3)3(3)5, MOLLI3(2)3(2)5 were 607.5 msc, 75%, 81%, 77%; 670.7msc, 85%, 92%, 88%; 644.05 msc,89%, 88%, 89%, respectively (Table 3) (Figure 3). There was a high association between percentage of fat signal fraction and MOLLI 3(3)3(3)5, MOLLI3(2)3(2)5 (r=0.713, p<0.001) (Table 4). There was a low association between MOLLI 5(3)3 and T2 sequences (r=0.447, -0.281; p=0.001, 0.038, respectively)...

In NAFLD, hepatic T1 relaxation times are longer if steatosis is present and a higher grade of steatosis seems to be associated with higher T1 values. However, further studies, in which MRI findings are correlated with histopathologic results are needed to evaluate the influence of inflammation and fibrosis in NAFLD on T1 values.

1. Williams CD, Stengel J, Asike MI et-al. Prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis among a largely middle-aged population utilizing ultrasound and liver biopsy: a prospective study. Gastroenterology. 2011;140 (1): 124-31. 2. Chen J, Talwalkar JA, Yin M, Glaser KJ, Sanderson SO, Ehman RL. Early detection of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease by using MR elastography. Radiology 2011; 259:749–756. 3. Yoon JH, Lee JM, Suh KS, Lee KW, Yi NJ, Lee KB, Han JK, Choi BI. Combined Use...