Quantifying steatosis in the liver and pancreas with MRI in patient with chronic liver disease

Abstract

Aim: To compare pancreatic and hepatic steatosis quantified by proton density fat fraction (PDFF) on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with chronic liver disease.

Material and methods: This cross-sectional study included 46 adult patients who underwent liver biopsy for chronic viral hepatitis (n=19) or other chronic non-alcoholic liver diseases (NALD) (n=27). Liver biopsy was used as the gold standard for diagnosing and grading hepatic steatosis. All patients underwent clinical evaluation and MRI with a multi-echo chemical shift-encoded (MECSE) gradient-echo sequence for liver and pancreas PDFF quantification. We used Spearman's correlation coefficient to determine the degree of association between hepatic PDFF and steatosis grade, and between pancreatic PDFF and steatosis grade and hepatic PDFF. To compare the chronic viral hepatitis group and the NALD group, we used t-tests for continuous or ordinal variables and chi-square tests for categorical variables.

Results: Hepatic PDFF measurements correlated with steatosis grades (R_S=0.875, p<0.001). Pancreatic PDFF correlated with hepatic steatosis grades (R_S=0.573, p<0.001) and hepatic PDFF measurements (R_S=0.536, p<0.001). In the subgroup of patients with chronic NALD, the correlations remained significant between pancreatic PDFF and hepatic PDFF (R_S=0.632, p<0.001) and between pancreatic PDFF and liver steatosis (R_S=0.608, p<0.001); however, in the subgroup of patients with viral hepatitis these correlations were no longer significant.

Conclusion: Pancreatic fat deposition correlates with hepatic steatosis in patients with chronic NALD, but not in those with chronic viral hepatitis.

Keywords: Adult; Adulto; Chronic hepatitis; Enfermedades del hígado; Esteatosis; Hepatitis crónica; Hígado; Liver; Liver disease; Magnetic resonance imaging; Pancreas; Páncreas; Resonancia magnética; Steatosis.