The residual liver relative enhancement index: a quantitative tool from gadoxetic acid-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging for assessing liver function in hepatocellular carcinoma patients.
AI interpretation is pending for this paper.
Open original publication →What the AI sees
Not AI summarized yet.
Research significance
Pending deeper interpretation.
Source abstract
AIM: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the residual liver relative enhancement index (RL-REI), which is derived from gadoxetic acid (GA)-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) and Child-Pugh (CP) scores in assessing liver function in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients with histopathologically confirmed HCC who underwent GA-enhanced MRI were retrospectively analysed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted to identify the optimal cut-off values for the residual liver volume (RLV), the enhancement ratio (ER), and the RL-REI in predicting ALBI grades and CP classes. Spearman's rank correlation was used to assess the relationships of the RLV, the ER, and the RL-REI with the ALBI and CP scores. Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was applied to evaluate intrareader reliability and inter-reader agreement. RESULTS: Forty-one patients (mean age: 56.7 ± 11.5 years, 33 men) met the study criteria. The RL-REI showed high diagnostic performance (area under the curve [AUC] ≥ 0.945 and accuracy ≥ 85.3%) for both readers in differentiating ALBI grades and CP classes (P<0.001). The RL-REI demonstrated a strong correlation with the ALBI and CP scores (r=-0.852 and -0.766 for reader 1, r=-0.839 and -0.758 for reader 2) (p<0.001). Intrareader and inter-reader agreement was almost perfect for all measurements (ICC ≥ 0.922) (P<0.001). CONCLUSION: The RL-REI demonstrated a strong correlation with ALBI and CP scores for assessing liver function in HCC patients and showed high accuracy in predicting ALBI grades and CP classes, highlighting its potential as a valuable radiological tool.