The potentials of magnetic resonance tomography
in the diagnosis of liver involvement in chronic circulatory failure.
Shakhidzhanova SV, Belenkov IN, Zvenigorodskaia LA, Ternovoi SK.
Ter Arkh 1993;65(3):72-5
The paper presents the results of NMR tomography of the liver in patients
with circulatory failure functional class II-III (NYHA) and suspected fibrotic
changes in the parenchyma. A resistive tomograph with 0.24 T field power
has been employed. Echocardiographic (%DS) evidence on a decline in the
left ventricular pumping capacity coupled with tomographic findings showing
lowering intensity of the signal from hepatic parenchyma. The difference
in the signal intensity for healthy subjects and the patients was statistically
significant. So was a correlation between %DS and signal intensity (r =
0.57, p Z 0.005) suggesting a relationship between hemodynamic shifts and
hepatic fibrosis. The role of spin-spinal relaxation time seemed ambiguous
as it was a subject to attendant parenchymal affections: edema, fat infiltration,
degeneration. The patients with insufficient greater circulation and echocardiographically
confirmed dilation of the right ventricle displayed the following visual
phenomena: intrahepatic periportal changes in the signal intensity, extension
of the hepatic veins to the periphery. Hepatic fibrosis was in some cases
confirmed by puncture hepatic biopsies. Thus, a quantitative and qualitative
analysis of hepatic NMR-tomograms can provide individual characteristics
of hepatic parenchyma structure in cardiological patients with circulatory
failure.