A statistical model of hepatic blood flow: application to normal and fibrotic livers

Chronic damage to the liver can cause fibrosis, or scarring of the tissue that can cause portal hypertension. Non-invasive gadolinium (Gd) enhanced MRI is used to study liver blood flow. Here, the livers uptake of Gd is modeled using a system of ordinary differential equations. A Bayesian framework that incorporates data and prior information is implemented and the resulting posterior density explored using Markov Chain Monte-Carlo methods. These parameter estimates are used to investigate the relative contribution of the hepatic artery to the total blood flow in the liver; we show that this value is significantly higher in fibrosis.

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