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Clinical Article
A preliminary study of synthetic magnetic resonance imaging in the clinical application of minimal hepatic encephalopathy
LIU Wenxiao  DANG Pei  YANG Xuhong  WANG Minglei  ZHAO Jianguo  GE Xin  LÜ Ruirui  YONG Peng  WANG Xiaodong 

Cite this article as: Liu WX, Dang P, Yang XH, et al. A preliminary study of synthetic magnetic resonance imaging in the clinical application of minimal hepatic encephalopathy[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2022, 13(5): 6-10, 16. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2022.05.002.


[Abstract] Objective To investigate the value of the synthetic magnetic resonance imaging (SyMRI) technique for the quantitative detection of relaxation values and proton density (PD) values in specific regions within the brain parenchyma of minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE) patients.Materials and Methods Twenty-three patients with MHE were collected from August 2020 to November 2021 from inpatients clinically diagnosed with cirrhosis at the Department of Infectious Diseases, General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University and screened according to the neuropsychiatric inventory. During the same period, 20 healthy volunteers with comparable matches for age, gender and education were collected. All subjects underwent SyMRI scans on a 3.0 T MRI scanner, and caudate nucleus, putamen, globus pallidus, thalamus and frontal white matter were selected as region of interest (ROIs), and T1, T2 and PD values were measured. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to evaluate the interobserver agreement of data measurements, and the Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the T1, T2 and PD values between the MHE and healthy control (HC) groups and to count the differences between the MHE-HC groups and their diagnostic efficacy.Results There was good agreement between the two physicians on the measurement of T1, T2 and PD values for each ROI of the brain parenchyma, with ICC values of 0.863, 0.822 and 0.816, respectively. Except for the bilateral frontal white matter, the T1, T2, and PD values of some subregions in the MHE group were lower than those in the HC group, and the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05). The T1 values of bilateral putamen and right globus pallidus were statistically significant between the MHE and HC groups; the T2 values of the right caudate nucleus, bilateral putamen and left globus pallidus were statistically significant between the MHE and HC groups; the PD values of right putamen were statistically significant between the MHE and HC groups. Compared with the HC group, the T1 and PD values of bilateral frontal white matter were higher in the MHE group, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). The diagnostic efficacy of PD values was highest in the right frontal white matter, and the area under the working characteristic curve of the subjects was 0.901.Conclusion SyMRI has a good quantitative ability for relaxation values in various brain regions in patients with MHE, and its T1, T2 and PD values have some potential value in detecting patients with MHE.
[Keywords] minimal hepatic encephalopathy;synthetic magnetic resonance imaging;proton density;relaxometry;diagnostic efficacy

LIU Wenxiao1   DANG Pei2   YANG Xuhong1   WANG Minglei2   ZHAO Jianguo2   GE Xin1   LÜ Ruirui1   YONG Peng1   WANG Xiaodong2, 3*  

1 School of Clinical Medicine, Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750001, China

2 Department of Radiology, General Hospital of Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750001, China

3 Key Laboratory of Craniocerebral Diseases of Ningxia Medical University, Yinchuan 750001, China

Wang XD, E-mail: xdw80@yeah.net

Conflicts of interest   None.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Science and Technology Key Research Program of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (2019BEG03037); Preponderant Discipline Groups of Neuroscience in Key Laboratory of Craniocerebral Diseases of Ningxia Medical University (LNKF202109); 2022 Natural Science Foundation of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (No. 2022AAC03487).
Received  2022-01-13
Accepted  2022-04-14
DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2022.05.002
Cite this article as: Liu WX, Dang P, Yang XH, et al. A preliminary study of synthetic magnetic resonance imaging in the clinical application of minimal hepatic encephalopathy[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2022, 13(5): 6-10, 16. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2022.05.002.

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