Evaluation of liver function in patients with liver cirrhosis and chronic liver disease using functional liver imaging scores at different acquisition time points
Authors: Tang Guixiang , Liu Jianbin , Liu Peng , Huang Feng , Shao Xunuo , Chen Yao , Xie An 
Published: December 2022

Purpose: This paper aims to explore whether functional liver imaging score (FLIS) based on Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images at 5, 10, and 15 min can predict liver function in patients with liver cirrhosis or chronic liver disease and its association with indocyanine green 15-min retention rate (ICG-R15), Child-Pugh (CP) score, albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) score, and model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score. In addition, it also examines the inter- and intra-observer consistency of FLIS and three FLIS parameters at three different time points.

Methods: This study included 110 patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) or liver cirrhosis (LC) (93 men, 17 women; mean ± standard deviation = 56.96 ± 10.16) between July 2019 and May 2022. FLIS was assigned in accordance with the sum of the three hepatobiliary phase characteristics, all of which were scored on the 0–2 ordinal scale, including the biliary excretion, hepatic enhancement and portal vein signal intensity. FLIS was calculated independently by two radiologists using transitional and hepatobiliary phase images at 5, 10, and 15 min after enhancement. The relationship between FLIS and three FLIS quality scores and the degree of liver function were evaluated using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. The ability of FLIS to predict hepatic function was investigated using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves.

Results: Intra- and inter-observer intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) (ICC = 0.937–0.978, 95% CI = 0.909–0.985) for FLIS at each time point indicated excellent agreement. At each time point, FLIS had a moderate negative association with liver function classification (r = [−0.641]-[−0.428], p &lt; 0.001), and weak to moderate correlation with some other clinical parameters except for creatinine (p &gt; 0.05). FLIS showed moderate discriminatory ability between different liver function levels. The area under the ROC curves (AUCs) of FLIS at 5, 10, and 15 min after enhancement to predict ICG-R15 of 10% or less were 0.838, 0.802, and 0.723, respectively; those for predicting ICG-R15 greater than 20% were 0.793, 0.824, and 0.756, respectively; those for predicting ICG-R15 greater than 40% were 0.728, 0.755, and 0.741, respectively; those for predicting ALBI grade 1 were 0.734, 0.761, and 0.691, respectively; those for predicting CP class A cirrhosis were 0.806, 0.821, and 0.829, respectively; those for predicting MELD score of 10 or less were 0.837, 0.877, and 0.837, respectively. No significant difference was found in the AUC of FLIS at 5, 10 and 15 min (p &gt; 0.05).

Conclusion: FLIS presented a moderate negative correlation with the classification system of hepatic function at a delay of 5, 10, and 15 min, and patients with LC or CLD were appropriately stratified based on ICG-R15, ALBI grade, MELD score, and CP classification. In addition, the use of FLIS to evaluate liver function can reduce the observation time of the hepatobiliary period.