Abstract #2143

MRI Can Quantify Hepatic Steatosis for Treatment Monitoring During Pharmacological Intervention in the Ob/ob Mouse

Catherine DG. Hines¹, Huanzhou Yu², Ann Shimakawa², Rashmi Agni³, Thomas F. Warner³, Jean H. Brittain⁴, Scott B. Reeder^1,5

¹Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA; ²Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, USA; ³Surgical Pathology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA; ⁴Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Madison, WI, USA; ⁵Radiology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

Insulin-sensitizing drugs are commonly used to treat hepatic steatosis in NAFLD/NASH patients. The purpose of this work is 1) to use MRI to non-invasively monitor metformin treatment longitudinally in an animal model of hepatic steatosis, the ob/ob mouse, and 2) evaluate the reproducibility of imaging fat-fraction measurements in order to detect meaningful longitudinal changes in fat-fractions. MRI fat-fractions agreed with Histological grading, and a 5.3% deviation about the mean indicates a true physiological difference in hepatic fat-fraction. These results demonstrate MRI successfully monitors insulin-sensitizing treatment of hepatic steatosis and progression of steatosis in mice.