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MR elastography of the liver at 3 T with cine-tagging and bending energy analysis: preliminary results

  • Gastrointestinal
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Abstract

Objective:

To preliminarily evaluate the feasibility and usefulness of MR elastography of the liver at 3 T with cine-tagging and bending energy (BE) analysis for the evaluation of hepatic fibrosis.

Materials and Methods:

Twenty-two patients underwent MR elastography with four different cine-tagging grids on the liver (16- or 20-mm sagittal or coronal). Nine images serially obtained during 1-s of exhalation were analyzed to define coordinates of grid intersections. BE values were calculated using the thin-plate spline method. BE values were compared among patient groups with different fibrosis stage thresholds.

Results:

In the 22 patients, six had a fibrosis score of F0, one had F1, seven had F2, three had F3, and five had F4. Mean BE value with 16-mm sagittal grid was greater with fibrosis score F0 (1.54 ± 0.63) than with ≥F1 (0.97 ± 0.12, P = 0.013) as well as with ≤F1 (1.48 ± 0.60) than with ≥F2 (0.96 ± 0.36, P = 0.019).

Conclusion:

Our results showed that MR elastography with 16-mm sagittal grid and BE analysis had a potential in discrimination for the patients with moderate or advanced hepatic fibrosis from those with healthy liver or slight fibrosis.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (20591439) and in part by the Health and Labour Sciences Research Grants for Third Term Comprehensive Control Research for Cancer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Gifu University Hospital, 1-1 Yanagido, 501-1194, Gifu, Japan

    Haruo Watanabe, Masayuki Kanematsu, Hiroshi Kondo, Satoshi Goshima & Kimihiro Kajita

  2. Department of Electronic Control Engineering, Gifu National College of Technology, Motosu, Japan

    Teruhiko Kitagawa

  3. Philips Electronics Japan Ltd., Medical Systems, Tokyo, Japan

    Yuriko Suzuki

  4. Department of Radiology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Kyongtae T. Bae

  5. Department of Pathology, Gifu University Hospital, Gifu, Japan

    Yoshinobu Hirose

  6. Department of Intelligent Image Information, Division of Regeneration and Advanced Medical Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine, Gifu University, Gifu, Japan

    Seiki Miotani, Xiangrong Zhou & Hiroshi Fujita

Authors
  1. Haruo Watanabe
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  2. Masayuki Kanematsu
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  3. Teruhiko Kitagawa
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  4. Yuriko Suzuki
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  5. Hiroshi Kondo
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  6. Satoshi Goshima
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  7. Kimihiro Kajita
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  8. Kyongtae T. Bae
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  9. Yoshinobu Hirose
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  10. Seiki Miotani
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  11. Xiangrong Zhou
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  12. Hiroshi Fujita
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Haruo Watanabe.

Appendix

Appendix

The BE is invariant for movements of the liver such as rotation and translation and is only related to the energy that is used to deform the liver parenchyma. This property makes it very suitable to provide a quantitative measure of softness of the liver in cine-tagging MR images. The number of the points that were used to show the liver is an important parameter during the BE computations. This theory is used in non-rigid warping method known as thin plate spline [24].

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Watanabe, H., Kanematsu, M., Kitagawa, T. et al. MR elastography of the liver at 3 T with cine-tagging and bending energy analysis: preliminary results. Eur Radiol 20, 2381–2389 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-010-1800-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-010-1800-0

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