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September 17, 2025

Comparison of Breath-Hold and Free-Breathing Techniques for Fat Fraction and R2* Quantification in the Liver

Key Points

The free-breathing technique significantly improves signal-to-noise ratios, enhancing liver disease detection.
Higher SNR ratios were observed in the free-breathing method, which also increases patient comfort during MRI.
Nineteen healthy controls underwent MRI scans to assess the performance of both techniques on fat fraction and R2* values.
The findings support the use of both techniques for liver quantification, but variations in R2* values indicate a need for protocol refinement.

Abstract

Motivation: Fat fraction (FF) and R2* measurements can be used as a non-invasive alternative to liver biopsies in patients with liver disease. Goal(s): To evaluate the performance of breath-hold (BH) and free-breathing (FB) MRI techniques for quantifying liver FF and R2* values. Approach: 19 healthy controls were scanned to acquire FF and R2* measurements using both BH and FB techniques. Signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio was measured in a subset of participants. Results: The FB technique, which improves patient comfort, demonstrated significantly higher SNR ratios. It presents as a promising tool for the early detection of liver diseases, once challenges like segmentation inaccuracies are addressed. Impact: This study demonstrates that both BH and FB techniques effectively quantify liver fat and iron, with FB offering higher SNR and reduced motion artefacts. However, variability in R2* values highlights the need for improved segmentation and protocol refinement.

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Cite This Study

Stamou et al. (Tue,) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/68d4597031b076d99fa5c80d https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.58530/2025/1679

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