Abstract

MR relaxometry increasingly contributes to liver imaging. Studies on native relaxation times mainly describe relation to the presence of fibrosis. The hypothesis was that relaxation times are also influenced by other inherent factors, including changes in liver synthesis function. With the approval of the local ethics committee and written informed consent, data from 94 patients referred for liver MR imaging, of which 20 patients had cirrhosis, were included. Additionally to standard sequences, both native T1 and T2 parametric maps and T1 maps in the hepatobiliary phase of gadoxetate disodium were acquired. Associations with laboratory variables were assessed. Altogether, there was a negative correlation between albumin and all acquired relaxation times in cirrhotic patients. In non-cirrhotic patients, only T1 values exhibited a negative correlation with albumin. In all patients, bilirubin correlated significantly with post-contrast T1 relaxation times, whereas native relaxation times correlated only in cirrhotic patients. Evaluating patients with pathological INR values, post-contrast relaxation times were significantly higher, whereas native relaxation times did not correlate. In conclusion, apart from confirming the value of hepatobiliary phase T1 mapping, our results show a correlation of native T1 with serum albumin even in non-cirrhotic liver parenchyma, suggesting a direct influence of liver’s synthesis capacity on T1 relaxation times.

Highlights

  • Studied and successfully applied in the field of cardiac diseases, MR relaxometry shows a growing contribution to liver imaging: T1 mapping combined with the liver-specific contrast agent gadoxetate disodium was proven useful to stage liver function in patients, as hepatocellular uptake of gadoxetate disodium into liver cells correlates with clinical liver function tests [1,2,3,4]

  • Native T1 relaxation times of the liver have, so far, not been studied extensively, and studies are limited to either patients with liver fibrosis or classifications according to the Child–Pugh score [1,5,6,7,8]

  • The results of this study show that T1 relaxation times of liver parenchyma correlate to the serum marker of liver synthesis albumin in both cirrhotic parenchymal alteration and in patients with normal liver structure

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Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Studied and successfully applied in the field of cardiac diseases, MR relaxometry shows a growing contribution to liver imaging: T1 mapping combined with the liver-specific contrast agent gadoxetate disodium was proven useful to stage liver function in patients, as hepatocellular uptake of gadoxetate disodium into liver cells correlates with clinical liver function tests [1,2,3,4]. Up to now, only very few and mainly preclinical studies evaluating T2 values have been published regarding the liver [9,10], with even fewer clinical approaches [11]

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