Reproducibility of 3.0 Tesla magnetic resonance spectroscopy for measuring hepatic fat content

✍ Scribed by Jochem R. van Werven; Johannes M. Hoogduin; Aart J. Nederveen; Andre A. van Vliet; Ewa Wajs; Petra Vandenberk; Erik S.G. Stroes; Jaap Stoker

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 324 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1053-1807
• DOI: 10.1002/jmri.21837

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Purpose

To investigate reproducibility of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (^1^H‐MRS) to measure hepatic triglyceride content (HTGC).

Materials and Methods

In 24 subjects, HTGC was evaluated using ^1^H‐MRS at 3.0 Tesla. We studied “between‐weeks” reproducibility and reproducibility of ^1^H‐MRS in subjects with fatty liver. We also studied within liver variability and within day reproducibility. Reproducibility was assessed by coefficient of variation (CV), repeatability coefficient (RC), and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).

Results

The CV of between weeks reproducibility was 9.5%, with a RC of 1.3% HTGC (ICC 0.998). The CV in fatty livers was 4.1%, with a RC of 1.3% HTGC (ICC 0.997). Within day CV was 4.5%, with a RC of 0.4% HTGC (ICC 0.999). CV for within liver variability was 14.5%.

Conclusion

Reproducibility of ^1^H‐MRS to measure HTGC for “between‐weeks” measurements and in fatty livers is high, which is important for follow‐up studies. Within liver variability displays a larger variation, meaning that liver fat is not equally distributed and during consecutive measurements the same voxel position should be used. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2009;30:444–448. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.