Quantitative Liver Fat Assessment by Handheld Point-of-Care Ultrasound: A Technical Implementation and Pilot Study in...

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Diagnostic Ultrasound
• Hepatology

Background:

• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a growing health concern.
• Accurate and accessible methods for assessing liver fat are needed.
• Current methods like MRI can be costly and time-consuming.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility and performance of quantitative ultrasound (QUS) using a handheld point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) device for liver fat assessment.
• To compare QUS performance between expert sonographers and novice operators.
• To correlate QUS parameters with magnetic resonance imaging-derived liver fat fraction.

Main Methods:

• A prospective pilot study enrolled adults with overweight or obesity.
• Participants underwent MRI for proton density fat fraction (PDFF) measurement.
• QUS was performed using a POCUS device, analyzing attenuation coefficient (AC) and backscatter coefficient (BSC).

Main Results:

• QUS accurately classified hepatic steatosis (PDFF ≥ 5%) with high AUCs (0.88-0.97) for both expert and novice operators.
• QUS parameters (AC and BSC) showed significant correlation with PDFF (rho 0.58-0.69).
• Novice operators achieved promising results after limited training.

Conclusions:

• Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) is feasible on a point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) device for liver fat assessment.
• The technique can be effectively performed by both expert and novice operators.
• QUS shows potential as a non-invasive, accessible tool for evaluating hepatic steatosis in at-risk populations.