The diagnostic efficacy of quantitative liver MR imaging with diffusion-weighted, SWI, and hepato-specific contrast-enhanced sequences in staging liver fibrosis—a multiparametric approach

To assess the diagnostic efficacy of multiparametric MRI using quantitative measurements of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of the liver parenchyma on diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), signal intensity (SI) on susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI), and gadoxetic acid-enhanced T1-weighted imaging during the hepatobiliary phase for the staging of liver fibrosis. Seventy-seven patients underwent a 3T MRI examination, including DWI/SWI sequences and gadoxetic acid-enhanced T1-weighted MRI. Liver fibrosis according to liver biopsy was staged using the Metavir fibrosis score: F0 (n = 21, 27.3 %); F1 (n = 7, 9.1 %); F2 (n = 8, 10.4 %); F3 (n = 12, 15.6 %); and F4 (n = 29, 37.7 %). SI of the liver was defined using region-of-interest measurements to calculate the ADC values, the relative enhancement (RE) in the hepatobiliary phase, and the liver-to-muscle ratio (LMR) measurements for SWI. The values of RE, LMR, and ADC measurements were statistically significantly different among the five fibrosis stages (p