Abstract #3539

Assessing the Reliability of SE-EPI MRE for Liver Stiffness Estimation Under Free-Breathing Instruction Compared to Breath-Holding

Timoteo I. Delgado^1,2, Sevgi Gokce Kafali^1,3, Bradley Bolster Jr.⁴, Lei Jiang⁵, Shu-Fu Shih^1,3, Kevin Johnson⁶, Pedro Itriago Leon⁷, Maria Altbach^6,8, Vibhas Deshpande⁹, David S. Lu¹, Steven-Huy B. Han¹⁰, and Holden H. Wu^1,2,3

¹Radiological Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ²Physics and Biology in Medicine Interdepartmental Program, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ³Department of Bioengineering, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States, ⁴US MR R&D Collaboration, Siemens Medical Solutions, Salt Lake City, UT, United States, ⁵US MR R&D Collaboration, Siemens Medical Solutions, Columbia, MO, United States, ⁶Department of Medical Imaging, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States, ⁷US MR R&D Collaboration, Siemens Medical Solutions, Houston, TX, United States, ⁸Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States, ⁹US MR R&D Collaboration, Siemens Medical Solutions, Austin, TX, United States, ¹⁰Hepatology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Synopsis

Keywords: Elastography, biomarkers

Motivation: Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) provides non-invasive liver fibrosis assessment, but breath-holding (BH) requirements limit its use in certain patients.

Goal(s): To compare liver stiffness (LS) estimates from SE-EPI MRE acquired under BH and free-breathing (FB) instruction.

Approach: Forty-three adults underwent both BH and FB SE-EPI MRE. We assessed the Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM) among MRE images and measurable region-of-interest (ROI) size. Agreement between LS estimates was evaluated using Bland-Altman and regression analyses.

Results: While FB had lower SSIM values and smaller ROIs, mean LS did not significantly differ from BH SE-EPI, with minimal bias (0.00kPa) and an intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.988.

Impact: Free-breathing SE-EPI MRE without explicit motion compensation provides reliable mean LS estimates comparable to breath-holding scans, enabling rapid liver stiffness assessment in patients with difficulty performing breath-holding.

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