Abstract #4031

A Comparison of MRI and Dual-Energy CT (DECT) for Quantification of Hepatic Steatosis in the Ob/ob Mouse

Nathan S. Artz¹, Catherine DG Hines², Jens-Peter Kuhn¹, Alejandro Roldan-Alzate¹, Rashmi Agni³, Steven Brunner⁴, Guang-Hong Chen⁴, Scott B. Reeder¹,⁴

¹Department of Radiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; ²Pharmaceuticals, Merck & Co., Inc, Philadelphia, PA, United States; ³Department of Surgical Pathology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; ⁴Department of Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States

Quantitative MRI methods have shown great promise as non-invasive biomarkers of hepatic steatosis, with validation studies performed in phantoms, animal models, and patients. However, CT and increasingly Dual-Energy CT (DECT), is used for most advanced imaging studies of the abdomen. The purpose of this study was to compare MRI and DECT for fat quantification using tissue triglyceride (TG) concentration as the reference, in an ob/ob mouse model. Excellent correlation (r >= 0.93,p<0.001) was observed for both CT attenuation (HU) and MRI fat-fraction compared with tissue TG and each other. Other DECT measurements demonstrated good, but inferior, correlation with TG and MRI.