Novel Quantitative Liver Steatosis Assessment Method With Ultrasound Harmonic Imaging

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is the most prevalent liver disorder in Western countries, with approximately 20%-30% of the MASLD patients progressing to severe stages. There is an urgent need for noninvasive, cost-effective, widely accessible, and precise biomarkers to evaluate liver steatosis. This study aims to assess and compare the diagnostic performance of a novel reference frequency method-based ultrasound attenuation coefficient estimation (ACE) in both fundamental (RFM-ACE-FI) and harmonic (RFM-ACE-HI) imaging for detecting and grading liver steatosis.