Abstract #1509

Differential Portal Venous Flow Response to Terlipressin in Normal and Cirrhotic Rats Non-Invasive Assessment Using Phase-Contrast MRI

Manil Chouhan¹, Alan Bainbridge², Nathan Davies³, Rajiv Jalan³, Rajeshwar Mookerjee³, Simon Walker-Samuel⁴, Mark F. Lythgoe⁴, Shonit Punwani¹, Stuart Taylor¹

¹UCL Centre for Medical Imaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom; ²Department of Medical Physics, University College Hospitals NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom; ³UCL Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom; ⁴UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Difficulties measuring liver blood flow have restricted our understanding of the vascular pathophysiology of liver disease and the development of therapeutic strategies to address these changes. Using phase-contrast (PC) MRI to measure portal venous flow at 9.4T, rat models of chronic liver disease have been studied using terlipressin, a clinically licensed agent for the reduction of splanchnic blood flow. Our study proceeds to demonstrate profound haemodynamic differences between animals with and without disease.