Diagnostic methods of fatty liver diseases.

Abstract

Fatty liver diseases represent the most common chronic liver diseases today. Therefore, the diagnostics of fatty liver is of great importance. Sonography is the most used imaging method in daily clinical practice for its availability and good diagnostic performance. But there are limitations in lower sensitivity in mild steatosis and in subjects with more severe obesity. Sonographic findings of fatty liver include higher echogenity of liver parenchyma and attenuation of ultrasound waves in deeper parts of the liver. Furthermore, there are some other advanced methods for semiquantitative and quantitative assessment of the amount of the liver fat. Many of them are based on acoustic signal attenuation assessment. The most broadly used is a CAP (controlled attenuation parameter) feature of FibroScan, which can assess fatty liver without classic ultrasound examination. Thera are also special MR based techniques - MR spectroscopy and PDFF (protein density fat fraction) which allow liver fat quantification with high precision and can be used as a reference standard.