Identifying nonalcoholic fatty liver disease from quantitative ultrasound measures Free

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in the United States, affects 30% of adult Americans, may progress to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and end-stage liver disease, and is a risk factor for diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The diagnosis, grading, and staging of NAFLD currently is based on liver biopsy with histologic analysis. Noninvasive image-based methods to evaluate the liver in adults with NAFLD are urgently needed. The objective is to identify the relationships between quantitative ultrasound (QUS) outcomes [backscatter coefficient, BSC, and attenuation coefficient, AC] and tissue properties to validate the diagnosis and/or grading of NAFLD. 83 participants with known or suspected NAFLD (thus few uncompromised liver samples expected) received contemporary QUS and MRI (proton density fat fraction) PDFF to estimate liver fat fraction. Of this group, 74 participants also received liver biopsy. Participant recruitment is continuing. Currently, observations show good correlations of both BSC and AC with PDFF, where PDFF ranged from 3% to 42%. Of the 74 biopsy participants, all stages of fibrosis have been pathologically identified [F0,25; F1,22; F2,13; F3,10; F4,4] suggesting both QUS identification opportunities and confounder challenges. [Support: NIH R01DK106419 and NIH R37EB002641.]