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Abstract This study was conducted on 50 patients with an incidentally discovered diffuse fatty liver by US. They were fifty asymptomatic patients (17 males, and 33 females). The overall mean age was 53.5 ± 9.9years (range, 30 – 73 years). The aim of this work was to study the role of IP-OP magnetic resonance imaging in quantification of liver fat content in patients with NAFLD. All Patients in this study were subjected to thorough history taking including age, sex and medical history, full clinical examination including vital signs, general examination, measurements of weight, standing height and BMI, real time abdominal US and IP-OP MR imaging. Non alcoholic fatty liver disease was found to be slightly more common in postmenopausal women. The possibility that female hormones protect against NAFLD has been postulated and supported by evidence that NAFLD was twice as common in postmenopausal women as in premenopausal women. Those who receive hormone replacement therapy were significantly less likely to have NAFLD compared to women who did not. Hepatic steatosis may be influenced by visceral fat accumulation regardless of body mass index. Visceral fat accumulation appears to be a significant risk for the development of NAFLD. In-phase and out-of-phase MR images provide useful information about the LFC. Our findings showed that a simple method can be used to determine if LFC is within the normal range. Measurements from IP-OP images provide a more reliable approximation of the true LFC than does subjective image interpretation, even if the interpretation is performed by an experienced radiologist. The advantages of this method are that it can be a guideline for less experienced radiologists and it is valid throughout the wide range of LFCs often observed in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and NAFLD. Increased use of IP-OP imaging to assess LFC has the potential to promote early detection of NAFLD and to potentially improve treatment evaluation. Thus, finally our recommendations are: 1. Magnetic resonance IP-OP is a non-invasive valuable technique for the estimation of hepatic steatosis better than liver biopsy. 2. Future research in which 1H MR spectroscopy is compared with signal intensity changes on IP-OP images in patients with severe liver disease is needed. 3. Further studies with larger sample size and longer time of follow-up by MRI IP-OP are recommended for patients with hepatic steatosis. |