Glucose as a stimulation agent in the BOLD functional magnetic resonance imaging for liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma: a feasibility study

Purpose: To explore the role of glucose as a stimulation agent in the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Materials and methods: Twenty HCC patients with cirrhosis and 10 healthy volunteers were recruited. BOLD fMRI was performed for all participants prior to and 30 min after oral administration of glucose to measure the T2* values of normal liver parenchyma, HCC liver parenchyma, HCC center, and HCC edge. Variations of the T2*(△T2*) before and after administration were calculated.

Results: Data from 16 patients and 10 healthy volunteers were reported. Before and after oral administration of glucose, T2* values of the normal liver parenchyma, HCC liver parenchyma, and HCC center were statistically different (p < 0.01), while no statistical difference was found in T2* value of the HCC edge (p = 0.35). △T2* values of the normal liver parenchyma, HCC liver parenchyma, HCC center, and HCC edge were 2.8 ± 1.1 ms, -1.3 ± 1.2 ms, -2.1 ± 1.8 ms, and 0.8 ± 3.2 ms before and after administration, respectively. △T2* value was statistically different in the liver parenchyma between healthy volunteers and HCC patients and between HCC center and HCC edge (both p < 0.01).

Conclusion: Use of glucose as the stimulation agent in BOLD fMRI may facilitate the assessment of liver function for patients with liver cirrhosis. The potential of △T2* to correlate with severity of liver cirrhosis, as well as to evaluate hepatic artery perfusion and bioactivity of HCC center should be further investigated.