Identification of Hepatic Fibrosis Using 4D-MRI

To date, no specific treatment options exist for liver diseases, and there is a large global effort to find drugs that will halt liver disease progression in these patients.Liver fibrosis staging is essential as a diagnostic/prognostic measure and there is an increasing demand for accurate non-invasive liver stiffness measurement tools. This research project proposes a novel MR-based quantitative Liver Deformation Biomarker (qLDB) approach for non-invasive liver fibrosis assessment by using a new technique called 4D-MRI. 4D-MRI allows to overcome the limitations of currently used techniques. Hence, 4D-MRI may help to identify a novel biomarker for non-invasive staging of liver fibrosis , and therefore improve the final diagnosis of patients suffering from liver diseases.