Hepatology : official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases
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Multicenter Study Observational Study
Magnetic resonance elastography measured shear stiffness as a biomarker of fibrosis in pediatric nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is a promising technique for noninvasive assessment of fibrosis, a major determinant of outcome in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, data in children are limited. The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of MRE for the detection of fibrosis and advanced fibrosis in children with NAFLD and to assess agreement between manual and novel automated reading methods. ⋯ All three analyses were significantly correlated with fibrosis stage (center 1, ρ = 0.53; center 2, ρ = 0.55; and automated analysis, ρ = 0.52; P < 0.001). Overall cross-validated accuracy for detecting any fibrosis was 72.2% for all methods (95% confidence interval [CI], 61.8%-81.1%). Overall cross-validated accuracy for assessing advanced fibrosis was 88.9% (95% CI, 80.5%-94.5%) for center 1, 90.0% (95% CI, 81.9%-95.3%) for center 2, and 86.7% (95% CI, 77.9%-92.9%) for automated analysis.