Hepatic fat quantification using the two‐point Dixon method and fat color maps based on non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease activity score

Abstract

The two-point Dixon method and the gray-scale or color FF maps based on the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease activity score were useful for fat quantification in the liver of patients without severe iron deposition.

Effect of luseogliflozin on hepatic fat content in type 2 diabetes patients with non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease: A prospective, single‐arm trial (LEAD trial)

“…Image acquisition was undertaken in the axial plane during an end‐expiratory breath‐hold using a sensitivity encoding technique, to reduce the overall acquisition time to approximately 15 s. We used the two‐point Dixon method, which is based on phase‐shift imaging in which HFF is calculated from the signal difference between the vectors resulting from in‐phase (IP) and out‐of‐phase (OP) signals. The two‐point Dixon method for MRI is commonly used to non‐invasively measure fat deposition in the liver . The multi‐breath‐hold T1‐weighted dual gradient echo sequence parameters were as follows: repetition time of 6.2 ms; echo time of 2.2 ms for OP images and 4.3 ms for IP images; flip angle, 15°; section thickness, 5 mm; matrix size, 256 × 192; and field of view, 35 cm × 38 cm.…”

Noninvasive Quantitative Detection Methods of Liver Fat Content in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

“… 23 MRS can determine the ratio of water to fat in tissue accurately and has been regarded as a reference imaging method for the assessment of liver lipid content. 34 , 35 …”

“… 18 Moreover, the spatial distribution of fat in the entire liver is difficult to understand by liver biopsy or MRS-fat fraction (MRS-FF), since the fat distribution in liver is nonuniform. 35 In addition, the complicated acquisition parameters, method of analysis, and location of the volume assessed can affect the accuracy of its evaluation. 7 Although these drawbacks exist, 1H-MRS is still an effective and noninvasive technique that can be used for diagnosis and quantitative analysis of hepatic steatosis.…”

“… 32 It is difficult to acquire thin-slice images, but imaging the entire liver at 5-mm slice thickness is feasibly using the two-point Dixon method. 35 However, the two-point Dixon method is not perfect, liver iron deposition may distort local magnetic fields for T2* shortening and may result in signal intensity loss; the multiecho technique can easily correct for T2* decay and solve this error, but when the two-point Dixon method without T2* correction is considered for patients without iron content, this will affect the accuracy of ultimate results. 28 Previous research has shown that the two-point Dixon method assumes a single peak on the fat spectrum, but the liver actually has multiple peaks for fat, suggesting that the fat fraction could be underestimated by the two-point Dixon compared with that by the multipeaks fat model.…”

“… 28 Previous research has shown that the two-point Dixon method assumes a single peak on the fat spectrum, but the liver actually has multiple peaks for fat, suggesting that the fat fraction could be underestimated by the two-point Dixon compared with that by the multipeaks fat model. 35 Despite the calculation of multiple fat peaks having this advantage, it is available on only a few MRI machines, so the application remains limited. 4 In this regard, the two-point Dixon method could be conveniently applied and is widely used.…”