Darwin S. Gao1, 2, Jian Yang1, 3, Matthew M. Cheung1, 2, April M. Chow1, 4, Shujuan Fan1, 5, Kwan Man6, Ed X. Wu1, 5
1Laboratory of Biomedical Imaging and Signal Processing, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; 2Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; 3Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Medical School, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China; 4Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; 5Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China; 6Department of Surgery, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China
In liver fibrosis, the structural damage on cellular scale may modify the restricted diffusion behavior of water molecules in the intra- and extracellular space. In this study, we examined whether different diffusion times would yield different sensitivities in detecting the pathological alterations in tissue microstructure during liver fibrogenesis in an experimental rat model. Our results demonstrated that true diffusion coefficient (DTrue) measured with long diffusion time was highly sensitive in detecting and accessing subtle changes in tissue microstructure during liver fibrogenesis.