Simultaneous assessment of liver volume and whole liver fat content: a step towards one-stop shop preoperative MRI protocol

Eur Radiol. 2011 Feb;21(2):301-9. doi: 10.1007/s00330-010-1941-1. Epub 2010 Sep 3.

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of a whole liver volume (WLV) segmentation algorithm to measure fat fraction (FF).

Methods: Twenty consecutive patients with histologically proven fatty liver disease underwent dual-echo in-phase/out-of-phase MRI and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) at 1.5 T. Two readers independently performed semiautomatic 3D liver segmentation on the out-of-phase sequences using an active contour model. FF was calculated for voxels, segments and WLV. Segmentation inter-observer reproducibility was assessed by intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) for WLV and FF. Fat fraction correlation and agreement as determined by histology, MRS and MRI were determined.

Results: ICC was 0.999 (95% CI: 0.999-1, P < 0.001) for WLV FF calculation and 0.996 (95% CI: 0.990-0.998, P < 0.001) for whole liver volume calculations. Strong correlations were found between FF measured by histology, MRS and WLV-MRI. A Bland-Altman analysis showed a good agreement between FF measured by MRS and WLV-MRI. No systematic variations of FF was found between segments when analyzed by ANOVA (F = 1.78, P = 0.096).

Conclusion: This study shows that a reproducible whole liver volume segmentation method to measure fat fraction can be performed. This strategy may be integrated to a "one-stop shop" protocol in liver surgery planning.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adipose Tissue / pathology*
  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Algorithms*
  • Fatty Liver / pathology*
  • Fatty Liver / surgery
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Image Enhancement / methods
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / methods*
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / methods*
  • Liver / pathology*
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Organ Size
  • Preoperative Care / methods
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity