Ultra-wideband MRE of the human liver and spleen for viscoelastic model identification in hepatic inflammation

Abstract

Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is established for noninvasive assessment of liver fibrosis. Conventional abdominal MRE is typically limited to 40-60 Hz. Lower frequencies remain largely unexplored, particularly with regard to hepatic inflammation. We developed ultra-wideband MRE covering 5-80 Hz to investigate frequency-resolved viscoelastic dispersion of the liver and spleen and to identify biomechanical markers of hepatic inflammation. Following phantom validation, nine healthy volunteers and nine patients with inflammatory liver disease were examined at 12 frequencies. Spatiotemporal phase unwrapping and frequency-adaptive wavefield preprocessing enabled reconstruction of shear wave speed (SWS), penetration rate (PR), and loss angle ($\phi$). Six rheological models were evaluated. The largest inflammation-associated changes were observed at frequencies below 20 Hz: $\phi$ increased by 63% (p<0.001), PR decreased by 37% (p=0.003), and SWS increased by 8% (p=0.008), indicating predominantly dissipative, rather than stiffness-related, changes and a shift toward fluid-like behavior with minor stiffness changes in the lower frequency regime. The rheological springpot model with serial dashpot provided the best fit and revealed distinct dispersion functions for liver and spleen. In patients, springpot elastic modulus increased (101%, p=0.001), while viscosity and springpot power-law exponent decreased (52%, p=0.002 and 58%, p<0.001) suggesting a shift from soft-fluid to stiff-solid liver properties. Ultra-wideband MRE revealed that inflammatory liver disease is associated with property shifts toward stronger dissipation and fluid-like behavior at low frequencies while displaying solid-like behavior at higher frequencies. Ultra-low frequency MRE may provide a diagnostic window into inflammation-associated liver viscoelasticity without full rheological modeling.