Near infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy quantification in fatty liver disease

Fatty liver disease, or steatosis, is a pathology characterized by the presence of fat droplets in the cytoplasm of hepatocytes. This common and potentially severe condition can result in liver damage and various health complications. The current gold standard method to assess steatosis involves an invasive biopsy and a subjective anatomopathological analysis. In this study, we introduce a novel non-invasive approach based on near infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. Currently, NIR DRS methods are often use to quantify fat fraction but our method provides a way to quantify a fraction of hepatocytes affected by steatosis and thus can be directly compared to anatomopathological analysis. The results obtained from this method demonstrate a strong correlation with the gold standard.