Caroline Hoad1, Carolyn Costigan1,
Luca Marciani2, Philip Kaye3, Robin Spiller2,
Penny Gowland1, Guru Aithal2, Susan Francis1
1School of Physics & Astronomy,
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom; 2Nottingham
Digestive Diseases Centre, NIHR Biomedical Research Unit, University
Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom; 3Department
of Cellular Pathology, University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham,
Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom
Phase contrast angiography of the portal vein and multi-slice True-FISP FAIR arterial spin labelling were used to measure hemodynamic parameters in 36 chronic liver disease patients. Reproducibility of these parameters was assessed in 5 healthy volunteers. Perfusion values were determined on a voxel-by-voxel basis. Portal vein mean flux and velocity across the cardiac cycle were also determined. A large inter-subject variability of these hemodynamic parameters was found across the liver patients, whereas the intra-subject variability was found to be much smaller. These techniques have the potential to monitor non-invasively the hemodynamic changes in the liver associated with liver fibrosis and cirrhosis.