Intracellular enhancement technique for gadoxetic acid-enhanced hepatobiliary-phase magnetic resonance imaging: evaluation of hepatic function.

PURPOSE: To investigate the utility of intracellular enhancement (ICE) technique which suppresses signals from the extracellular space for the evaluation of hepatic function on gadoxetic acid-enhanced hepatobiliary-phase (HBP) images.

METHODS

We subjected 67 patients with suspected neoplastic hepatic lesions to gadoxetic acid-enhanced HBP imaging with and without ICE [i-HBP, conventional-HBP (c-HBP)]. A radiologist calculated the liver/spleen contrast (LSC) [LSC = signal intensity (SI) of liver/SI of spleen]. Receiver-operating analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic value of the LSC on i-HBP- (i-LSC) and c-HBP images (c-LSC) to differentiate between Child-Pugh classes A and B.

RESULTS

Of the 67 patients, 57 were in Child-Pugh class A and 10 were in class B. For their differentiation, the area under the curve value of i-LSC was higher than of c-LSC (0.81 vs. 0.68).

CONCLUSIONS

ICE technique can improve the accuracy of estimating hepatic function on HBP images.