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Background Liver fibrosis (LF) is a common pathological feature of all chronic liver diseases. With the accumulation of extracellular matrix in the fibrotic liver, true molecular water diffusion and perfusion-related diffusion are restricted. Intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) can capture the information on tissue diffusivity and microcapillary perfusion separately and reflect the fibrotic severity with diffusion coefficients. Aim To investigate the diagnostic performance of IVIM in detecting and staging LF with histology as a reference standard. Methods A comprehensive literature search was conducted to identify studies on the diagnostic accuracy of IVIM for assessment of histologically proven LF. The stages of LF were classified as F0 (no fibrosis), F1 (portal fibrosis without septa), F2 (periportal fibrosis with few septa), F3 (septal fibrosis), and F4 (cirrhosis) according to histopathological findings. Data were extracted to calculate the pooled sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative likelihood ratios, and diagnostic odds ratio, as well as the area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) in each group. Results A total of 12 studies with 923 subjects were included in this meta-analysis with 5 studies (n = 465) for LF ≥ F1, 9 studies (n = 757) for LF ≥ F2, 4 studies (n = 413) for LF ≥ F3, and 6 studies (n = 562) for LF = F4. The pooled sensitivity and specificity were estimated to be 0.78 (95% confidence interval: 0.73-0.82) and 0.81 (0.74-0.86) for LF ≥ F1 detection with IVIM; 0.82 (0.79-0.86) and 0.80 (0.75-0.84) for staging F2 fibrosis; 0.85 (0.79-0.90) and 0.83 (0.77-0.87) for staging F3 fibrosis, and 0.90 (0.84-0.94) and 0.75 (0.70-0.79) for detecting F4 cirrhosis, respectively. The AUCs for LF ≥ F1, F2, F3, F4 detection were 0.862 (0.811-0.914), 0.883 (0.856-0.909), 0.886 (0.865-0.907), and 0.899 (0.866-0.932), respectively. Moderate to substantial heterogeneity was observed with inconsistency index (I 2) ranging from 0% to 77.9%. No publication bias was detected. Conclusion IVIM is a noninvasive tool with good diagnostic performance in detecting and staging LF. Optimized and standardized IVIM protocols are needed to further improve its diagnostic accuracy in clinical practice.

Introduction: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) currently accompanies clinical findings in disease diagnosis, patients’ follow-up, assessment of drugs complications, and evaluation of treatment response. Although contrast-enhanced MRI (CE-MRI) is considered as the imaging modality of choice for multiple sclerosis (MS), due to disease chronicity, applying multiple doses of gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) increases the risk of nephrogenic syndrome in patients with acute (ARF) and chronic renal syndromes (CRF). Moreover, the effect of gadolinium on the fetus is not well-known in pregnant patients. Therefore, this study evaluates the possibility of replacing postcontrast images with physiologically based MRI sequences such as diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC). Method: We prospectively evaluated 26 patients with known multiple sclerosis. The patients with MS attacks and the asymptomatic patients who were referred for follow-up were enrolled. Conventional MRI including postcontrast T1W, DWI, and ADC were performed for all patients. The signal intensity (SI) of all enhancing and nonenhancing plaques of more than 10 × 10 mm size were investigated in all sequences and analyzed. Results: A total of 83 plaques were detected in T2-FLAIR sequences of which 51 plaques were enhanced (68%) after gadolinium administration. While 42 MS plaques had hypersignal intensity in DWI (56%), 32 plaques had iso- or hyposignal intensities in DWI (44%). No statistically significant values were obtained. Conclusion: Although DWI could not replace CE-MRI, using these two modalities together could increase detection of active MS plaques and alter patients’ therapy and prognosis.

Background Spinal angiolipomas (SAL) are rare benign tumors, commonly presenting with slow progressive spinal cord compression. There are only about 170 cases identified so far. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has become the modality of choice for SAL. The purpose of this article is to report three cases of SAL and their characteristic MRI features. Case presentation Three cases of epidual spinal angiolipoma from ethnic Han Chinese patients are presented here, including one lumbar and two thoracic tumors. MRI imaging findings were reviewed. Conclusions Multiple MRI technology for characterization of SAL provides useful information for differential diagnosis and therapeutic management.

Background The underlying causes of minor stroke are difficult to assess. Here, we evaluate the reliability of the Chinese Ischemic Stroke Subclassification (CISS) system in patients with minor stroke, and compare it to the Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment (TOAST) system. Methods A total of 320 patients with minor stroke were retrospectively registered and categorized into different subgroups of the CISS and TOAST by two neurologists. Inter- and intra-rater agreement with the two systems were assessed with kappa statistics. Results The percentage of undetermined etiology (UE) cases in the CISS system was 77.3 % less than that in the TOAST system, which was statistically significant (P