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Magnetic resonance elastography: beyond liver fibrosis—a case-based pictorial review

Abdominal Radiology volume 43, pages 1590–1611 (2018)Cite this article

Abstract

Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) has been introduced for clinical evaluation of liver fibrosis for nearly a decade. MRE has proven to be a robust and accurate technique for diagnosis and staging of liver fibrosis. As clinical experience with MRE grows, the possible role in evaluation of other diffuse and focal disorders of liver is emerging. Stiffness maps provide an opportunity to evaluate mechanical properties within a large volume of liver tissue. This enables appreciation of spatial heterogeneity of stiffness. Stiffness maps may reveal characteristic and differentiating features of chronic liver diseases and focal liver lesions and therefore provide useful information for clinical management. The objective of this pictorial review is to recapture the essentials of MRE technique and illustrate with examples, the utility of stiffness maps in other chronic liver disorders and focal liver lesions.

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Acknowledgments

Funding was provided by National Institutes of Health (Grant No. EB001981).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, 200, First Street SW, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA

    Sudhakar K. Venkatesh, Michael L. Wells & Richard L. Ehman

  2. Department of Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Frank H. Miller

  3. Joint Department of Medical Imaging, University Health Network, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Kartik S. Jhaveri

  4. Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, AZ, USA

    Alvin C. Silva

  5. NYU Medical College, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Bachir Taouli

Authors
  1. Sudhakar K. Venkatesh
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  2. Michael L. Wells
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  5. Alvin C. Silva
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Correspondence to Sudhakar K. Venkatesh.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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A waiver of informed consent was obtained from our institutional review board for the retrospective review of images.

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Venkatesh, S.K., Wells, M.L., Miller, F.H. et al. Magnetic resonance elastography: beyond liver fibrosis—a case-based pictorial review. Abdom Radiol 43, 1590–1611 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00261-017-1383-1

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Keywords

  • Elastograms
  • Diffuse liver diseases
  • Focal liver lesions
  • Congestive hepatopathy
  • Infiltrative diseases
  • Primary sclerosing cholangitis
  • Amyloidosis
  • Sarcoidosis
  • Acute hepatitis