Purpose: To evaluate the difference in enhancement effects between the area of fatty change and the area of nonfatty change in patients with nondiffuse fatty change of the liver at gadolinium-ethoxybenzyl-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid (Gd-EOB-DTPA)-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) imaging.
Methods: Thirteen patients with nondiffuse fatty change of the liver underwent Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced MR imaging including dynamic study using a 1.5-T MR unit. Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MR images were obtained at pre, arterial phase (25 seconds), portal phase (70 seconds), equilibrium phase (3 minutes), and hepatobiliary phase (10, 15, 20 minutes). The percentage differences of signal enhancement ratio were calculated from signal intensity measurement of the liver in each phase of DCE study and were compared between the area of fatty change and the area of nonfatty change in all phases.
Results: In the all phases on DCE study, there were no significant differences in the signal enhancement ratio between the area of fatty change (27.7% ± 14.8%, 58.2% ± 14.7%, 62.7% ± 10.6%, 80.4% ± 15.2%, 84.9% ± 16.2%, 88.0% ± 14.3%) and the area of nonfatty change (29.9% ± 16.6%, 54.9% ± 13.3%, 63.0% ± 8.8%, 75.7% ± 12.6%, 80.3% ± 15.7%, 86.4% ± 14.5%) (P = 0.613).
Conclusions: Although our results are limited by the small number of patients, our results showed that the presence of fatty change of the liver did not affect the hepatic contrast enhancement effects of Gd-EOB-DTPA in all phases on dynamic study. This indicates that Gd-EOB-DTPA may be a reliable marker to identify areas of nondiffuse fatty change of the liver.