Retrospective Cohort Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 7, 2020; 26(21): 2821-2830
Published online Jun 7, 2020. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i21.2821
Periportal thickening on magnetic resonance imaging for hepatic fibrosis in infantile cholestasis
Myung Hwan Lee, Hyun Joo Shin, Haesung Yoon, Seok Joo Han, Hong Koh, Mi-Jung Lee
Myung Hwan Lee, Hyun Joo Shin, Haesung Yoon, Mi-Jung Lee, Department of Radiology, Severance Hospital, Severance Pediatric Liver Disease Research Group, Research Institute of Radiological Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 03722, South Korea
Seok Joo Han, Department of Surgery, Severance Hospital, Severance Pediatric Liver Disease Research Group, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 03722, South Korea
Hong Koh, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, Severance Children’s Hospital, Severance Pediatric Liver Disease Research Group, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 03722, South Korea
Author contributions: Lee MH and Lee MJ designed the research; Lee MH, Shin HJ, Yoon H and Lee MJ performed the research and wrote the manuscript; Lee MH and Lee MJ analyzed the data; Han SJ and Koh H contributed analytic tools; Lee MH, Shin HJ, Yoon H, Han SJ, Koh H, and Lee MJ revised and approved the final version.
Institutional review board statement: This study was reviewed and approved by the local ethics committee of the Severance Hospital, Yonsei University.
Informed consent statement: Because of the retrospective and anonymous character of this study, the need for informed consent was waived by the institutional review board.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors declare no conflicts-of-interest related to this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Mi-Jung Lee, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Radiology, Severance Hospital, Severance Pediatric Liver Disease Research Group, Research Institute of Radiological Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, 50-1 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03722, South Korea. mjl1213@yuhs.ac
Received: December 26, 2019
Peer-review started: December 26, 2019
First decision: January 13, 2020
Revised: March 27, 2020
Accepted: May 26, 2020
Article in press: May 26, 2020
Published online: June 7, 2020
Processing time: 162 Days and 15.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Non-invasive evaluation of hepatic fibrosis is important in infants with cholestasis including biliary atresia. Periportal thickening (PT) and normalized spleen size ratio (SR) measured on liver magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed positive correlations with hepatic fibrosis grade, even after adjusting age. For the diagnosis of significant fibrosis (F2-F4), PT using the cutoff of 4.2 mm showed higher diagnostic performance than SR or aspartate transaminase to platelet ratio index. For the diagnosis of cirrhosis (F4), SR was the best. Therefore, liver MRI findings of PT and SR can be useful to assess clinically significant hepatic fibrosis (F2 and higher) in infants with cholestasis.