Liver magnetic resonance elastography technique

Mechanical properties are promising surrogates for monitoring and characterizing various pathophysiologic conditions of cells and tissues. The mechanical properties of liver tissue are strongly correlated with the extent of fibrosis, and perhaps with increased hepatic vascular resistance and the associated increase of portal venous pressure. With recent advances in biomedical imaging, the ability to quantify in vivo liver stiffness with the development of MR elastography (MRE) is beginning to see widespread clinical use for assessing hepatic fibrosis as an alternative to biopsy. In this chapter, we will introduce the practical in vivo hepatic MRE technique for clinical investigations in humans, which is the culmination of technology development and optimization involving driver design (generating shear waves in the liver), pulse sequence design, imaging parameters, inversion algorithms, and image analyses.