Low-cost non-invasive diagnostic tools for staging the progression of non-alcoholic chronic liver failure from fatty liver disease to steatohepatitis are unavailable. Here, we describe the development and performance of a portable single-sided magnetic-resonance sensor for grading liver steatosis and fibrosis using diffusion-weighted multicomponent T2 relaxometry. In a diet-induced mouse model of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, the sensor achieved overall accuracies of 92% (Cohen’s kappa, κ = 0.89) and 86% (κ = 0.78) in the ex vivo grading of steatosis and fibrosis, respectively. Localization of the measurements in living mice through frequency-dependent spatial encoding led to an overall accuracy of 87% (κ = 0.81) for the grading of steatosis. In human liver samples, the sensor graded steatosis with an overall accuracy of 93% (κ = 0.88). The use of T2 relaxometry as a sensitive measure in fully automated low-cost magnetic-resonance devices at the point of care would alleviate the accessibility and cost limits of magnetic-resonance imaging for diagnosing liver disease and assessing liver health before liver transplantation.

用于分期从脂肪肝疾病到脂肪性肝炎的非酒精性慢性肝衰竭进展的低成本非侵入性诊断工具是不可用的。在这里，我们描述了一种便携式单侧磁共振传感器的开发和性能，用于使用扩散加权多分量 T2 弛豫法对肝脏脂肪变性和纤维化进行分级。在饮食诱导的非酒精性脂肪性肝病小鼠模型中，传感器 在脂肪变性和纤维化的离体分级中分别实现了 92% (Cohen's kappa, κ  = 0.89) 和 86% ( κ = 0.78) 的总体准确度. 通过频率相关的空间编码对活体小鼠的测量结果进行定位，总体准确度为 87%（κ = 0.81) 用于脂肪变性的分级。在人类肝脏样本中，传感器对脂肪变性进行分级，总体准确率为 93% ( κ  = 0.88)。在护理点使用 T2 弛豫测量法作为全自动低成本磁共振设备的敏感测量，将减轻磁共振成像在肝移植前诊断肝脏疾病和评估肝脏健康的可及性和成本限制。