Assessment of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Rats Using Quantitative Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced MRI.
To evaluate the usefulness of dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) in the assessment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) severity.



Liver DCE-MRI at 3.0T was performed in 36 adult Sprague-Dawley rats with methionine choline-deficient diet-induced NAFLD and 10 untreated control rats. Pharmacokinetic parameters of DCE-MRI including Ktrans, Kep, Ve, Vp, and hepatic portal index (HPoI) were measured using the dual-input extended Tofts model. Animals were categorized as normal (n = 10), simple steatosis (SS, n = 11), borderline nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (bNASH, n = 20), and NASH (n = 5) subgroups according to the NAFLD activity score system, and classified into F0 (n = 24), F1 (n = 11), F2 (n = 7), and F3 (n = 4) subgroups according to an established scoring system. DCE-MRI parameters were compared. Receiver operating characteristic analyses were performed to assess the diagnostic performance of various DCE-MRI parameters in grading NAFLD activity and staging liver fibrosis.



Ktransand HPoI were elevated with increasing severity of NAFLD activity and increased fibrosis stage. The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROCs) of HPoI ranged from 0.895-0.951 for discriminating between different grades of NAFLD activity, and the AUROC was 0.852 for discriminating F0 stage from overall F1-F3 stages. The AUROC of Ktransfor discriminating non-NASH from bNASH and NASH groups was 0.968, and 0.898 for discriminating between normal and overall fibrosis groups.



DCE-MRI may play a role in assessing NAFLD severity.



1 J. MAGN. RESON. IMAGING 2017;45:1485-1493.
Department of Radiology, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Zhuo
Z
Wu
Department of Radiology, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Zi-Liang
ZL
Cheng
Department of Radiology, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Zhi-Long
ZL
Yi
Department of Radiology, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Ming-Wei
MW
Xie
Department of Pathology, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Hong
H
Zeng
Department of Radiology, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Lie-Jing
LJ
Lu
GE Healthcare, China, Shanghai, China.
Xiao
X
Xu
Department of Radiology, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Jun
J
Shen
D000818:Animals; D019540:Area Under Curve; D001706:Biopsy; D003287:Contrast Media / Q000737:chemistry*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007700:Kinetics; D008099:Liver / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D008103:Liver Cirrhosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D065626:Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D012372:ROC Curve; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity
D003287:Contrast Media
animal model; dynamic contrast-enhanced; experimental; fatty liver; liver fibrosis; magnetic resonance imaging; nonalcoholic steatohepatitis