Benjamin Leporq1,
Frank Pilleul, 12, Jerome Dumortier3, Olivier Guillaud3,
Thibaud Lefort2, Sdika Michal1, Olivier Beuf1
1CREATIS;
CNRS UMR 5220; INSERM U1044; INSA-Lyon; UCBL, Universit de Lyon,
Villeurbanne, Rhne-Alpes, France; 2CHU Edouard Herriot;
Department of digestive imaging, Hospices Civils de Lyon, Lyon, Rhne-Alpes,
France; 3CHU Edouard Herriot; Department of Hepatology, Hospices
Civils de Lyon, Lyon, Rhne-Alpes, France
Liver fibrosis is an important cause of mortality and morbidity in patients with chronic liver diseases. While an early detection and a clinical follow-up of liver fibrosis are required for therapeutic strategies, the actual gold standard cannot be used in the clinical follow-up due to inherent risk, interobserver variability and sampling errors. Our objective was to validate a MR protocol at 3.0 T for liver perfusion quantification using MR-DCE imaging with an auto-calibrated procedure for tracer concentration quantification. Validation was performed in-vivo on a prospective study including fourteen patients with chronic liver diseases. Results demonstrated that to quantify liver perfusion using MR-DCE imaging can be achieve at 3.0T. Quantitative perfusion parameters such as HPI, MTT, portal and total perfusion could be relevant biomarkers to make the distinction between the absence of fibrosis, non-advanced fibrosis, and advanced fibrosis in patients with chronic viral hepatitis as well as in patients with NAFLD.