Macroscopic heterogeneity of liver fat: an MR-based study in type-2 diabetic patients

Objective To assess the heterogeneity of liver fat deposition with MR of the liver in type-2 diabetic (T2D) patients. Methods We enrolled 121 consecutive T2D patients. The reference standard was 3.0-T 1 H-MR spectroscopy. Hepatic steatosis was defined as liver fat content (LFC) ≥5.56 %. A triple-echo gradient-echo sequence corrected for T1 recovery and T2* decay was used to calculate LFC in left and right livers and hepatic segments. Analyses were performed using a linear mixed model. Results Fifty-nine (48.8 %) patients had liver steatosis, whereas 62 (51.2 %) did not. Steatosis was greater in the right than in the left liver ( P