Hsin-You Ou1, Susanne Bonekamp2, David Bonekamp2, Celia P. Corona-Villalobos2, Vivek G. Halappa2, Li Pan3, Bernhard Geiger4, Ihab Kamel2
1The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore , MD, United States; 2The Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD, United States; 3Center for Applied Medical Imaging Siemens Corporate Research, Baltimore, MD, United States; 4Siemens Corporate Research, Princeton, NJ, United States
Fibrosis and cirrhosis are the consequences of chronic liver disease which are currently assessed by liver biopsy which is limited by its invasiveness, sampling error, and observer variability. Since fibrosis and cirrhosis lead to alterations in blood flow to the liver the evaluation of hemodynamic changes in the liver has been suggested as a noninvasive measure. This study found that the arterial enhancement fraction of the liver on tri-phasic MRI correlated with the degree of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis in 59 patients with chronic liver disease who underwent MRI and liver biopsy within 12 months.