Author information
1Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California. Electronic address: ssarkar@ucdavis.edu.
2Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California.
3Department of Radiology, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California.
4Division of Biostatistics, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California.
5Department of Radiology, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California. Electronic address: gbwang@ucdavis.edu.
Abstract
Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a severe form of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease characterized by lobular inflammation and hepatocyte injury and is a key determinant of clinical outcome.1 Liver biopsy remains the gold standard for diagnosis but is limited by risks of the procedure and interobserver variability. Although magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based technology may provide novel means to identify NASH,2 there remains a significant need for other modalities to diagnose NASH noninvasively. Glucose transport, an integral tissue process altered in NASH,3 is measurable with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG PET). Because unenhanced computed tomography (CT) scan can detect hepatic steatosis quite reliably,4and PET combines unenhanced CT for attenuation correction, we hypothesized that measurement of the combination of glucose transport by PET and steatosis by CT could yield a reliable radiologic correlate of NASH.