Magnetic resonance elastography in staging liver fibrosis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: a pooled analysis of the diagnostic accuracy

Background This study was performed to systematically evaluate the accuracy of magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) in staging of liver fibrosis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Methods PUBMED, EMBASE, Web of Science, CNKI, Cochrane Library database were searched from January 2008 to December 2018 for studies related to MRE in the diagnosis of NAFLD liver fibrosis. The quality of the included literature was assessed by Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2) tool. The pooled sensitivity, the pooled specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) value was performed by STATA 14.0 software. Results A total of 12 studies were included, involving 910 patients. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of each group were 0.77 (95%CI 0.69-0.83) and 0.90 (95%CI 0.83-0.94) for F >= 1 (mild liver fibrosis), 0.87 (95%CI 0.74-0.94) and 0.86 (95%CI 0.71-0.94) for F >= 2 (significant liver fibrosis), 0.89 (95%CI 0.81-0.94) and 0.84 (95%CI 0.63-0.94) for F >= 3(severe liver fibrosis), 0.94 (95%CI 0.85-0.98) and 0.75 (95%CI 0.35-0.94) for F >= 4 (early cirrhosis), respectively. The area under the summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve was 0.89, 0.93, 0.93, and 0.95, respectively. Conclusions MRE has high accuracy in the diagnosis of hepatic fibrosis staging in patients with NAFLD.