Role of Advanced MRI Techniques in the Quantitative Assessment of Liver Fat—A Multimodality-Based Comparative Study of Diagnostic Performance in a Tertiary Care Institute

Objective To evaluate the accuracy of noninvasive imaging methods including gray-scale ultrasound, ultrasound shear wave elastography, unenhanced computed tomography (CT), and proton density fat fraction (PDFF) on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using three-dimensional (3D) multiecho multipoint chemical shift–encoded spoiled gradient echo (q-DIXON) sequence in the quantification of hepatic steatosis, with proton MR spectroscopy (H1-MRS) as the reference standard in Indian population. Methods Our study included 100 consecutive adult patients referred to the department of radiology in our hospital for imaging of liver. Fat content of liver was recorded using MRI (H1-MRS and q-DIXON), unenhanced CT (average liver attenuation [ALI] and liver attenuation index [LAI]) and ultrasonography (USG) (gray-scale grading and shear wave elastography [SWE]). Data were analyzed by linear regression and Bland–Altman analysis for each technique compared with H1-MRS. The diagnostic performances of all the methods were compared using DeLong test, for detection of mild and moderate-to-severe hepatic steatosis, separately. Results MRI q-DIXON PDFF showed excellent correlation (r = 0.917, r2 = 0.840) and strong agreement (1.48 ±3.01) with H1-MRS-derived PDFF measurements. Unenhanced CT-based methods showed moderate correlation with modest agreement (r = −0.826, r2 = 0.681, −40.18 ± 16.05 for ALI and r = −0.858, r2 = 0.735, 13.4 ± 15.3 for LAI) whereas USG gray-scale assessment showed low correlation (weighted Kappa value 0.366) with H1-MRS PDFF. No correlation was found between USG-SWE results and PDFF measured with H1-MRS. Comparison of areas under curve (AUCs) using DeLong test revealed that MRI q-DIXON method performed the best for diagnosis of hepatic steatosis compared with rest. For moderate to severe steatosis, MRI q-DIXON and unenhanced CT-based methods had comparable diagnostic performance with AUCs not showing statistically significant differences. Conclusion MRI q-DIXON shows strongest correlation with MRS and should be preferred for estimation of hepatic fat, especially when MRS is not available. Unenhanced CT shows limited diagnostic performance in detecting mild steatosis; however, it certainly has a role in diagnosing moderate-to-severe hepatic steatosis, such as evaluating donor candidates for living donor liver transplantation. USG, using both the traditional four-grade visual assessment and elastography in the present form, appears to have limited role in liver fat quantification.