Quantification of liver fat using non-invasive MRI-PDFF technique versus guided biopsy in potential liver donor

Abstract

Abstract Introduction Significant hepatic steatosis affects the outcome of surgery when living donors are transplanted. The gold standard for diagnosing and evaluating hepatic steatosis is hepatic imaging-guided biopsy. Hepatic steatosis assessment using MR spectroscopy and the proton density fat fraction (MR-PDFF) method has produced positive findings. Objectives Is to compare the pre-operative assessment of liver fat quantification using MRI-PDFF methods, a non-invasive method, with histopathology. Subjects and methods A 42 potential donors were then operated surgically for liver transplantation, consequently, were available for the assessment of the efficiency and sensitivity of the radiological findings MRI-PDFF procedures and imaging-guided liver biopsy. This radiological workup of these donors was done through a period of 7 months. Results In many liver transplantations centers, liver imaging-guided biopsy histopathological examination is the gold standard. The study examined the MR proton density fat fraction modality, a recently developed test for hepatic steatosis measurement. The findings indicate 86.8% sensitivity, 50% specificity, 94.2% PDV, 28.5% NPV, 83.3% accuracy, and 0.684 AUC. On analyzing the fat percent, we found that the recorded fat percent using liver imaging-guided biopsy ranges between 1 and 10% with a median of 3. On the other hand, the recorded fat percent using MRI ranged between 2 and 15% with a median of 5. Conclusion The non-invasive magnetic resonance hepatic proton density fat fraction approach using IDEAL sequence is a reliable and accurate means of quantitatively evaluating hepatic steatosis with excellent sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy.

Keywords

• MRI
• MRI-PDFF
• Fatty liver infiltration
• Biopsy