Prospective Evaluation of Hepatic Steatosis Using Ultrasound Attenuation Imaging in Patients with Chronic Liver Disease with Magnetic Resonance Imaging Proton Density Fat Fraction as the Reference Standard

Abstract

The purpose of our study was to investigate the diagnostic performance of 2-D ultrasound attenuation imaging (ATI) for the assessment of hepatic steatosis in patients with chronic liver disease using magnetic resonance imaging proton density fat fraction (MRI-PDFF) as the reference standard. We prospectively analyzed 87 patients with chronic liver disease who had reliable measurements at both ATI and MRI-PDFF. For the detection of hepatic steatosis of MRI-PDFF ≥5% and MRI-PDFF ≥10%, ATI measurements yielded areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.76 and 0.88, respectively (95% confidence intervals: 0.66-0.85 and 0.79-0.94). Attenuation coefficients at ATI were moderately correlated with MRI-PDFF (ρ = 0.66). In conclusion, attenuation coefficients at ultrasound ATI were well correlated with MRI-PDFF and, thus, may provide good diagnostic performance in the assessment of hepatic steatosis, making these coefficients a promising tool for the non-invasive assessment and quantification of hepatic steatosis.

Keywords: Attenuation imaging; Chronic liver disease; Fat quantification; Hepatic steatosis; Proton density fat fraction; Ultrasound.