| Abstract: | BACKGROUND: Controlled attenuation parameter (CAP) has been developed to estimate the extent of hepatic steatosis. AIMS: The purpose was to evaluate the usefulness of CAP in assessing hepatic steatosis and its change using magnetic resonance imaging proton density fat fraction (MRI-PDFF) as reference standard. METHODS: Consecutive patients with liver steatosis were enrolled prospectively. We assessed hepatic steatosis with CAP and MRI-PDFF at enrollment and 12-month follow-up. The correlations between the two methods were analyzed. With MRI-PDFF as reference, the performance of CAP in diagnosis of steatosis severity and its changes was assessed. RESULTS: A total of 50 patients were enrolled, and 45 of them had follow-up MRI-PDFF and CAP at a median interval of 399 days. The mean hepatic steatosis was 13.4% by MRI-PDFF and 291.6 dB/m by CAP. There were positive correlations between CAP and MRI-PDFF in steatosis severity and its change. The median value of CAP was 254, 301.5, and 329.5 dB/m for steatosis < 10%, 10-20%, and > 20%, respectively. For CAP in detecting steatosis ≥ 10% and > 20%, the diagnostic performance was 0.821 and 0.814. With the cutoff of 275 dB/m for ≥ 10% steatosis, the positive predictive value was 84.8%. With the cutoff of 325 dB/m for > 20% steatosis, the negative predictive value was 91.9%. In multiple linear regression, one dB/m change by CAP was associated with 0.039% change by MRI-PDFF. CONCLUSIONS: In assessing liver fat content, CAP correlated with MRI-PDFF and was useful for detection and monitoring of hepatic steatosis. |
