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Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most common causes of cardiometabolic diseases in overweight individuals. While liver biopsy is the current gold standard to diagnose NAFLD and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a non-invasive alternative still under clinical trials, the former is invasive and the latter costly. We demonstrate electrical impedance tomography (EIT) as a portable method for detecting fatty infiltrate. We enrolled 19 overweight subjects to undergo liver MRI scans, followed by EIT measurements. The MRI images provided the a priori knowledge of the liver boundary conditions for EIT reconstruction, and the multi-echo MRI data quantified liver proton-density fat fraction (PDFF%) to validate fat infiltrate. Using the EIT electrode belts, we circumferentially injected pairwise current to the upper abdomen, followed by acquiring the resulting surface-voltage to reconstruct the liver conductivity. Pearson’s correlation analyses compared EIT conductivity or MRI PDFF with body mass index, age, waist circumference, height, and weight variables. We reveal that the correlation between liver EIT conductivity or MRI PDFF with demographics is statistically insignificant, whereas liver EIT conductivity is inversely correlated with MRI PDFF (R = −0.69, p = 0.003, n = 16). As a pilot study, EIT conductivity provides a portable method for operator-independent and cost-effective detection of hepatic steatosis.

Perforation of gastrointestinal (GI) tract is a rare, but serious complication of abdominopelvic irradiation, and it can even occur several years after radiotherapy. As one of the symptoms of radiation enteropathy, it shares common features with other chronic complications and has its own characteristic at the same time. It has been reported that some systematic therapies, such as sorafenib and bevacizumab, could add the risk of radiation-induced GI perforation. The potential mechanisms of aggravated GI injury may be exacerbation of epithelial cell damage, microvascular damage or subsequent inflammatory response. The complicated situation makes it almost impossible to set uniform dose constraints for GI perforation prevention. The majority of cancer patients with GI perforation require emergency surgery, and there is no high quality evidence for supporting the use of any prevention measures. In this review, we summarize the clinical manifestation, risk factors, mechanism, and therapy of radiation-induced GI perforation. A comprehensive treatment plan is crucial to improve the quality of life for cancer survivors.