Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 15, 2026
Measurement of Liver Stiffness Using Atomic Force Microscopy Coupled with Polarization Microscopy
Published on: July 20, 2022
Repeatability of magnetic resonance elastography for quantification of hepatic stiffness
Catherine D G Hines1, Thorsten A Bley, Mary J Lindstrom
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53792-3252, USA.
Purpose:
To determine the sources of variability of MRE hepatic stiffness measurements using healthy volunteers and patients and to calculate the minimum change required for statistical significance. Hepatic stiffness measured with magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) has demonstrated tremendous potential as a noninvasive surrogate of hepatic fibrosis, although the underlying repeatability of MRE for longitudinal tracking of liver disease has not been documented.
Materials And Methods:
MRE stiffness measurements from 20 healthy volunteers and 10 patients were obtained twice on the same day, and repeated 2-4 weeks later for volunteers in this institutional review board-approved study. A linear mixed effects model was used to estimate the component sources of variability in the data.
Results:
The standard deviation of MRE measurements of the same individual on different days is 11.9% (percent of the measured stiffness) using the same reader and 12.0% using different readers. The standard deviation of the difference between two measurements (i.e., longitudinal change in an individual) is 17.4%; the corresponding 95% confidence interval for zero change is (-27.0%, 37.0%).
Conclusion:
MRE is a repeatable method for quantifying liver stiffness. Using the described MRE technique, changes greater than 37.0% of the smaller measured stiffness value represent meaningful changes in longitudinal liver stiffness measurements.
