Assessment of hepatic fat content in using quantitative ultrasound measurement of hepatic/renal ratio and hepatic echo-intensity attenuation rate

Aims: This study aims to evaluate and validate a simple quantitative ultrasound (US) method for determining the hepatic fat content (HFC) based on the combination of quantitative US hepatic/renal ratio (US-HRR) and quantitative US hepatic echo-intensity attenuation rate (US-HAR) as compared with [1H]-magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS).Material and methods: There were a total of 242 subjects recruited in the present study. All subjects were examined for HFC by quantitative US and 1H-MRS methods. The QUS-HRR and QUS-HAR were calculated from ordinary ultrasound images of liver and kidney with a triple modality 3D abdominal phantom using the Image J software.Results: The results found that US-HRR and US-HAR correlated with 1H-MRS HFC (US-HRR: r=0.946, p