Using blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) MRI in the diagnosis of hepatic warm ischemia-reperfusion injury in rabbits and evaluation of liposomal prostaglandin E1 intervention effect

Objective To quantitatively evaluate the diagnostic value of blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) MRI in the diagnosis of different degrees of liver warm ischemia-reperfusion injury (WIRI) in rabbits and evaluate the intervention effect of liposomal prostaglandin E1 (Lipo-PGE1) . Methods Seventy healthy adult New Zealand white rabbits were randomly divided into sham-operated group (A0), thermal ischemic groups (A1~A3) and intervention groups (A4~A6). All experimental rabbits were scanned by routine MR and BOLD MRI after 6-hour reperfusion. R2* images were calculated by two radiologists. The levels of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), asparate aminotransferase (AST) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were examined. And liver pathological sectioning was performed. All data were processed by one-way, Spearman’s correlation and receiver operating characteristic curve analyses. Results The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.805 of two measurements suggesting that the repeatability of the outcome was decent. R2* values among sham-operated, thermal ischemia and intervention groups were statistically significant (P 0.5, P<0.05). ROC analysis indicated that R2* had an excellent diagnostic performance. Conclusions BOLD MRI may be applied for noninvasive assessment of liver ischemia-reperfusion injury in different degrees. Lipo-PGE1 alleviates ischemia-reperfusion injury and BOLD MRI can evaluate the relieving degree of Lipo-PGE1. Key words: Magnetic resonance imaging; Liver; ischemia-chemia reperfusion injury