Fatty infiltration of the liver: demonstration by proton spectroscopic imaging: preliminary observations

Two normal volunteers and three patients with CT evidence of fatty infiltration of the liver were studied to determine whether magnetic resonance imaging using a pulse sequence designed to differentiate fat and water could be used to detect fatty infiltration of the liver in human being. The magnetic resonance technique used a modified spin echo technique (simple proton spectroscopic imaging). Quantitative data showed that fatty liver can be separated from normal liver using the spin echo technique, and that the opposed image of the proton spectroscopic technique is more sensitive to small changes in hepatic fatty content than in-phase images with any echo time