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Keywords:
Liver, Abdomen, Ultrasound, Elastography, Diagnostic procedure, Cirrhosis
Authors:
G. Ferraioli, L. Maiocchi, R. Lissandrin, A. De Silvestri, C. Tinelli, C. Filice; Pavia/IT
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2017/B-1248
Purpose
Chronic viral hepatitis is still the leading cause of liver fibrosis.
It can progress to cirrhosis with its complications,
including portal hypertension,
end-stage liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. Nowadays,
liver stiffness,
which is directly related to liver fibrosis,
can be assessed using ultrasound (US)-based non-invasive methods which have replaced liver biopsy in several clinical settings.
Transient elastography (TE),
which was the first method released,
is considered the reference standard,
however it needs a dedicated system which does not provide US imaging of the liver.
Shear wave elastography techniques have been implemented in diagnostic US systems all of which are based on the generation of shear waves by a focused ultrasound push pulse.
The shear wave measurement (SWM) method recently made available on the Hitachi system is a point shear wave elastography (pSWE) method,
i.e.
it assesses the stiffness of the liver at a single location (Figure 1).
This study aimed at prospectively assessing the performance of the SWM method using TE as the reference standard.