Assessment of Hepatic Fibrosis in Liver Transplant Patients using MR Elastography - preliminary results

Background and Purpose: Liver transplantation is an ultimate therapeutic option for end-stage liver disease. In the context of liver cirrhosis caused by viral hepatitis, it is known that re-infection of the graft occurs frequently and that progression of fibrosis advances more quickly in the transplanted organ [1]. Therefore, a closer follow-up is necessary including frequent biopsies for grading fibrosis. A non-invasive method of detecting and grading fibrosis in liver transplant patients is therefore of particular interest. MR elastography (MRE) allows the non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis based on the response to oscillatory shear stress [2-4]. External mechanical vibrations are introduced into the body and the resulting shear wave propagation in the liver is imaged by motion-sensitive MR sequences. Up to this point, MRE has not been applied to liver transplant patients for detecting fibrosis. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the potential of MRE in detecting liver fibrosis in transplant patients.