Characterization of focal fatty change in the liver with a fat-enhanced inversion-recovery sequence

A T1-weighted inversion-recovery (IR) sequence was used to study 15 patients with possible fatty change in the liver. The inversion time (TI) was calculated for optimal suppression of normal liver signal (t-null). Conventional spin-echo (SE) and short TI IR (STIR) sequences were also performed. For seven documented benign focal fatty liver lesions, the T1-weighted IR (fat-enhanced) sequence clearly enabled differentiation of normal from fat-infiltrated liver, whereas three of these lesions were isointense to normal liver with all other sequences. The livers of the other nine patients (two normal, one with diffuse fatty change, two with metastatic disease, one with hemangioma, one with focal nodular hyperplasia, one with simple cyst, and one with micronodular cirrhosis) showed homogeneous reduction of liver signal with the fat-enhanced IR sequence.