Intravoxel incoherent motion derived liver perfusion/diffusion readouts can be reliable biomarker for the detection of viral hepatitis B induced liver fibrosis

Background: Recent two studies reported that intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) analysis can separate healthy livers and viral hepatitis B (VHB) induced liver fibrosis. However, in these two studies the starting b-value for bi-exponential decay analysis was b =10 and b =15 s/mm 2 respectively. The current study has two primary aims. The first is to further confirm the diagnostic value of IVIM in detecting liver fibrosis. The second is to test whether by sampling very low b-value densely, then b =0 s/mm 2 image could be included to improve IVIM’s diagnostic performance. Methods: This was a prospective study with data acquired at the Third Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changs…