title: Correlation of MR elastography with morphometric quantification of liver fibrosis (Fibro-C-Index) in chronic hepatitis B.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We evaluated the correlation of MR Elastography (MRE) with morphometric assessment of liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis B (CHB).
  
  
  METHODS
  Thirty-two patients with CHB underwent both MRE and a liver biopsy within a 6-month interval. MRE was performed using standard MRE sequence on a 1.5 Tesla clinical scanner. The liver stiffness (LS) was measured on automatically generated stiffness maps. Morphometric quantification of fibrosis of liver biopsies was performed using a semi-automated image analysis program and expressed as percentage area (Fibro-C-Index). Correlations between MRE, Fibro-C-Index, and histologic fibrosis stages were evaluated. Receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis of MRE and Fibro-C-index for differentiating fibrosis (≥F1), significant fibrosis (≥F2), advanced fibrosis (≥F3), and cirrhosis (F4) was performed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  MRE showed excellent correlation with both Fibro-C-Index (r = 0.78, 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.59-0.88, P < 0.001) and histologic staging (rho = 0.87, 95% CI, 0.72-0.94, P < 0.0001). Significant differences in MRE (P = 0.0001) and Fibro-C-Index (P = 0.003) among different stages of liver fibrosis was found. MRE and Fibro-C-Index had similar accuracies for differentiating fibrosis stages: ≥F1 (0.87 versus 0.81, P = 0.6), ≥F2 (0.95 versus 0.94, P = 0.78), ≥F3 (0.98 versus 0.96, P = 0.76), and F4 (1.00 versus 0.92, P = 0.10).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  MRE is an excellent noninvasive indicator of liver fibrosis burden in CHB.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
authors.forename: Sudhakar K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Venkatesh
authors.forename: Shuoyu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Dean
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tai
authors.forename: Hanry
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Aileen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wee
mesh_terms: D054459:Elasticity Imaging Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D019694:Hepatitis B, Chronic / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013223:Statistics as Topic
keywords: Fibro-C-Index; chronic hepatitis b; liver fibrosis; magnetic resonance elastography; morphometric analysis