Jerry S. Cheung1,2, Shu Juan Fan1,2,
Darwin Shan Gao1,2, Kwan Man3, Ed X. Wu1,2
1Laboratory of Biomedical Imaging and
Signal Processing, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR,
China; 2Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The
University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China; 3Department
of Surgery, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China
Early
diagnosis of liver fibrosis could facilitate early interventions and thus
alleviate its progression to cirrhosis and/or hepatocellular carcinoma.
Several studies have shown that measurement of water diffusivity by
diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) was useful in the evaluation of liver
fibrosis and cirrhosis. The aim of this study was to characterize
longitudinal changes in diffusion properties of liver using diffusion tensor
imaging (DTI) in an experimental model of liver fibrosis. The experimental
results in this study demonstrated that DTI could detect longitudinal changes
in diffusion properties of liver in an experimental model of liver fibrosis.