Highlights
- •Modern liver imaging combines morphological and functional information to detect and characterize focal lesions.
- •Quantitative data allows tumor response assessment in oncology and monitoring of diffuse liver conditions.
- •Texture analysis (radiomics) creates new surrogate markers of liver pathology.
Abstract
From an invisible organ to one of the most explored non-invasively, the liver is,
today, one of the cornerstones for current cross-sectional imaging techniques and
minimally invasive procedures. After the achievements of US, CT and, most recently,
MRI in providing highly accurate morphological and structural information about the
organ, a significant scientific development has gained momentum for the last decades,
coupling morphology to liver function and contributing far most to what we know today
as precision medicine. In fact, dedicated tailor-made investigations are now possible
in order to detect and, most of all, quantify physiopathological processes with unprecedented
certitude. It is the intention of this review to provide a better insight to the reader
of several functional imaging techniques applied to liver imaging. Contrast enhanced
imaging, diffusion weighted imaging, elastography, spectral computed tomography and
fat and iron assessment techniques are commonly performed clinically. Diffusion kurtosis
imaging, magnetic resonance spectroscopy, T1 relaxometry and radiomics remain largely
limited to advanced clinical research. Each of them has its own value and place on
the diagnostic armamentarium and provide unique qualitative and quantitative information
regarding the pathophysiology of diseases, contributing at a large scale to model
therapeutic decisions and patient follow-up. Therefore, state-of-the-art liver imaging
acts today as a non-invasive surrogate biomarker of many focal and diffuse liver diseases.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: June 19, 2020
Accepted:
June 4,
2020
Received in revised form:
May 20,
2020
Received:
February 5,
2020
Identification
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© 2020 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
