Abstract
Retrospective evaluations were made of abdominal echograms in 38 patients who had various diffuse liver diseases and underwent liver biopsy within 2 weeks after ultrasound study, in order to investigate the reliability of the ultrasound in the diagnosis of fatty liver. In stead of the well recognized but subjective diagnostic criterion, bright liver pattern, Liver/Kidney contrast was proposed as an objective one, which was defined as a relative brightness of the liver to the renal parenchyma where fatty infiltration hardly occurs. Combination of this Liver/Kidney contrast and two other well-known ultrasound findings of fatty liver, vascular blurring and deep attenuation, enabled us to grade fatty infiltration semiquantitatively. If fatty infiltration over 30% of hepatic lobule was adopted as the definition of fatty liver, satisfaction of both Liver/Kidney contrast and vascular blurring could provide the ultrasound diagnostic criterion of fatty liver, with sensitivity of 83%, specificity of 100% and an accuracy of 95%.
