Non invasive liver stiffness evaluation using US elastography has been recently introduced in clinical practice as an alternative to histology for assessing the degree of liver fibrosis in patients with risk factors for liver disease such as chronic hepatitis B or hepatitis C infection, cirrhosis, alcohol consumption and obesity. Moreover, in these patients, the degree of liver fibrosis is significantly related to the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) occurrence(1,2). US elastography is a simple, non invasive and inexpensive technology and already widely and routinely used...

This study was approved by our institutional review board. 70 patients (47 men, 23 women, mean age: 53,9 yr; range22-91 yr) have been prospectively included in a single center study. These patients were referred for abdominal ultrasound with normal as well as pathological conditions of liver: 49 patients with known chronic liver disease, 21 without known liver disease. US examinations were performed by two experienced operators in liver elastography. Clinical indexes: Patient morphotype and body shape were determinedas follow: Body Mass index: calculated from weight...

Clinical indexes: Liver structure on B-mode US imaging was described as homogeneous (grade 0 and 1) in 41 patients (58,6%) and heterogeneous (grade 2 and 3) in 25 (41,4%). Patients Body Mass Indexwere : 31 normal weight (44,3%), 26 overweight (37,2%), 10 obesity (14,3%), 3 underweight (4,2%) Skin-to-liver thickness: mean17,68 mm; range 9-44 mm Performances of linear and abdominal probes in elasticity measurements(average values on selected frames): At the time of examination, the convex probe failed to provide elasticity measurements in 12 patients (17%) because...

As already shown for BMI in the literature (7), our results showed that quality of SWE acquisitions is not significantly correlated with patient morphotype and pathological conditions of liver. No correlations were found between linear and abdominal probes results underlying the importance of using only the validated convex probe for liver stiffness assessment.

Linda Chami, MD, Department of Radiology, Hôpital de la Pitié Salpétrière, Paris, France Claire Pellot-Barakat, PhD, Laboratory of Functional Imaging , INSERM U678, Faculty of Medicine P&M Curie, Paris, France Amine Ayed, MD, Department of Radiology, Hôpital de la Pitié Salpétrière, Paris, France Isabelle Huyun-Charlier, MD, Department of Radiology, Hôpital de la Pitié Salpétrière, Paris, France Sophie Egels, MD,Department of Radiology, Hôpital de la Pitié Salpétrière, Paris, France Olivier Lucidarme, MD PhD, Department of Radiology, Hôpital de la Pitié Salpétrière, Paris, France and Laboratory of...

1. Park BK, Park YN, Ahn SH, et al. Long-term outcome of chronic hepatitis B based on histological grade and stage. J Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2007;22:383–388. 2. Jung KS, Kim SU, Ahn SH, et al. Risk assessment of hepatitis B virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma development using liver stiffness measurement (FibroScan) Hepatology. 2011;53:885–894. 3. Bamber J, Cosgrove D, Dietrich CF, Fromageau J, Bojunga J, Calliada F, Cantisani V, Correas JM, D’Onofrio M, Drakonaki EE, et al. EFSUMB guidelines and recommendations on the clinical use of ultrasound elastography. Part...