Eleanor F Cox1, Naaventhan Palaniyappan2, Andrew Austin3, Richard O'Neill4, Greg Ramjas4, Simon Travis4, Hilary White4, Rajeev Singh3, Peter Thurley3, Indra Neil Guha2, Guruprasad Padur Aithal2, and Susan T Francis1
1SPMIC, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, 2NIHR Nottingham Digestive Diseases Biomedical Research Unit, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom, 3Royal Derby Hospital, Derby, United Kingdom, 4Department of Radiology, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, United Kingdom
The hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG)
is the only validated measure to assess portal pressure but this is invasive
and not widely available. Here, we use non-invasive MR parameters as a
surrogate for portal pressure. Longitudinal relaxation time (T1) measures of
the liver and spleen, phase contrast measures of splanchnic and collateral flow,
and ASL measures of perfusion are correlated against HVPG measures in 30 patients.
Liver tissue T1 is shown to be positively correlated with HVPG (p<0.001). Combining
T1 measures with splenic artery velocity
using a simple linear model, it is shown that HVPG can be non-invasively
assessed.
