A comparative study between arterial spin labeling and CT perfusion methods on hepatic portal venous flow

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and potential usefulness of unenhanced magnetic resonance (MR) hepatic portal perfusion using arterial spin labeling (ASL) among healthy volunteers and hepatocellular carcinoma patients. The five healthy volunteers underwent unenhanced MR perfusion with inversion time 2 (TI2) values at 500-ms intervals between 2,000 and 4,000 ms, and the 12 patients underwent unenhanced MR perfusion using ASL and computed tomography (CT) perfusion during superior mesenteric artery (SMA) portography. The regions of interest were placed in both the right and left lobes of the liver or both the right anterior and posterior segments of the liver and were placed over the tumor if a lesion was located within a particular perfusion study slice. In the healthy volunteer study, perfusion rate in hepatic parenchyma showed a peak at the TI2 value of 3,000 ms (254.3 ml/min/100 g +/- A 58.3). In patients, a fair correlation was observed between CT and MR perfusion (r = 0.795, P < 0.01). Our results demonstrate a significant fair correlation between unenhanced MR hepatic portal perfusion imaging using ASL and CT perfusion during SMA portography.