Journal Article

Reliability of ultrasound hepatorenal index and magnetic resonance imaging proton density fat fraction techniques in the diagnosis of hepatic steatosis, with magnetic resonance spectroscopy as the reference standard

Ujita, Kouichi, Tsushima, Yoshito, Taketomi-Takahashi, Ayako, Suto, Takayuki, Hirasawa, Hiromi, Tran, Bien Van

2021

Overview

To evaluate the reliability of ultrasound hepatorenal index (US-HRI) and magnetic resonance imaging proton density fat fraction (MRI-PDFF) techniques in the diagnosis of hepatic steatosis, with magnetic resonance spectroscopy proton density fat fraction (MRS-PDFF) as the reference standard. Fifty-two adult volunteers (30 men, 22 women; age, 31.5 ± 6.5 years) who had no history of kidney disease or viral/alcoholic hepatitis were recruited to undergo abdominal US, MRI, and MRS examinations. US-HRI was calculated from the average of three pairs of regions of interest (ROIs) measurements placed in the liver parenchyma and right renal cortex. On MRI, the six-point Dixon technique was employed for calculating proton density fat fraction (MRI-PDFF). An MRS sequence with a typical voxel size of 27 ml was chosen to estimate MRS-PDFF as the gold standard. The data were evaluated using Pearson's correlation coefficient and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The Pearson correlation coefficients of US-HRI and MRI-PDFF with MRS-PDFF were 0.38 (p = 0.005) and 0.95 (p<0.001), respectively. If MRS-PDFF [greater than or equal to]5.56% was defined as the gold standard of fatty liver disease, the areas under the curve (AUCs), cut-off values, sensitivities and specificities of US-HRI and MRI-PDFF were 0.74, 1.54, 50%, 91.7% and 0.99, 2.75%, 100%, 88.9%, respectively. The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) of US-HRI and MRI-PDFF were 0.70 and 0.85. MRI-PDFF was more reliable than US-HRI in diagnosing hepatic steatosis.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Biology and Life Sciences / Biopsy / Cardiovascular disease / Correlation / Correlation coefficient / Correlation coefficients / Diabetes / Diagnosis / Diagnosis, Ultrasonic / Evaluation / Fatty liver / Hepatitis / Kidney diseases / Liver / Liver diseases / Magnetic resonance / Magnetic resonance imaging / Magnetic resonance spectroscopy / Mathematical analysis / Medical diagnosis / Medical imaging / Medicine and Health Sciences / Methods / Neuroimaging / Nuclear medicine / Parenchyma / Physical Sciences / Proton density (concentration) / Reliability analysis / Renal cortex / Research and Analysis Methods / Resonance / Software packages / Spectroscopy / Spectrum analysis / Steatosis / Students / Ultrasonic imaging / Ultrasound