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Keywords:
Liver, Ultrasound physics, Elastography, Diagnostic procedure, Cirrhosis
Authors:
L. Chami1, C. Pellot-Barakat1, M. Lefort1, A. Ayed2, I. Huynh-Charlier1, S. Egels1, O. Lucidarme1; 1Paris/FR, 2Paris /FR
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2014/C-2180
Aims and objectives
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 in specialized centers for the diagnosis,
staging and monitoring of liver fibrosis.
ShearWave elastography (SWE) (SuperSonic Imagine,
France) is a new method using a 2-D real time technology which provides color maps of absolute elasticity and quantitative estimation of liver shear modulus reported in kilopascals.
It combines the advantages of the remote palpation of the liver by the acoustic radiation force and the real time echographic imaging of transient elastography.
To date,
and according to EFSUMB recommendations,
SWE can be used to assess the severity of liver fibrosis in patients with chronic viral hepatitis,
especially with hepatitis C (3,4).
To the best of our knowledge,
only one study evaluated SWE reproducibility and showed that liver elasticity assessement using SWE was an intra and inter observer reproducible method but the performances were lower in non experienced operator (5).
To our knowledge,
the influence of patients physical factors on liver stiffness measurements using US elastography have been reported in few studies with various results (6,7).
The aim of our study was to evaluate the feasibility of SWE technology in liver stiffness measurements in routine practice by studying the influence of patients clinical indexes on SWE data quality.