Morphological Changes of Liver Among Post-Fontan Surgery Patients

Authors

Varatharajan Nainamalai, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
Håvard Bjørke Jenssen, Rikshospitalet-Radiumhospitalet HF
Khadiza Tun Suha, College of EngineeringFollow
Mostafa Rezaeitaleshmahalleh, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
Min Wang, The University of Texas at San Antonio
Sarah Khan, Helen DeVos Children's Hospital
Marcus Haw, Helen DeVos Children's Hospital
Jingfeng Jiang, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow
Joseph Vettukattil, Michigan Technological UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2024

Department

Department of Biomedical Engineering; Health Research Institute; Institute of Computing and Cybersystems

Abstract

Purpose: Liver screening and longitudinal study of Fontan Associated Liver Diseases (FALD) is essential to identifying hepatomegaly and how hepatomegaly relates to various stages of liver fibrosis. In this study, we investigated longitudinal liver shape changes and liver stiffness in a cohort of patients with Fontan Associated Liver Disease. Methods: We used 170 image volumes of 40 Fontan stage 3 completion patients. We also used 65 computed tomography images of healthy individuals from three datasets for comparison. Thirteen radiomic shape features of Fontan patients and individuals with a healthy liver were extracted and analyzed longitudinally. We studied correlations among features, liver spleen ratio, and liver stiffness with shape features. Results: The enlargement of the liver, along with all shape features, was observed in all post-surgery intervals related to hepatomegaly and fibrosis. The shape features of healthy individuals and Fontan cases differ significantly in the longitudinal analysis and in the liver-spleen ratio. There is a positive correlation among body mass index, body surface area, age, Fontan surgery years, and liver stiffness. Conclusion: The changes in shape features between Fontan patients and healthy subjects are statistically significant, which shows the relation for hepatomegaly and liver fibrosis. Accurate delineation of these features with artificial intelligence-based segmentation could serve as a valuable adjunct for the clinical follow-up of Fontan patients.

Publisher's Statement

© The Author(s) 2024. Publisher’s version of record:https://doi.org/10.1007/s40846-024-00910-7

Publication Title

Journal of Medical and Biological Engineering

Recommended Citation

Nainamalai, V., Jenssen, H., Tun Suha, K., Rezaeitaleshmahalleh, M., Wang, M., Khan, S., Haw, M., Jiang, J., & Vettukattil, J. (2024). Morphological Changes of Liver Among Post-Fontan Surgery Patients. Journal of Medical and Biological Engineering, 44(6), 871-882. http://doi.org/10.1007/s40846-024-00910-7
Retrieved from: https://digitalcommons.mtu.edu/michigantech-p2/1283

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Version

Publisher's PDF