Keywords:
Abdomen, Liver, Ultrasound, Elastography, Observer performance, Diagnostic procedure, Cirrhosis, Tissue characterisation
Authors:
B. Fejér, A. Kucsa, Z. Unger, T. Youn, M. Abonyi, V. Bérczi, P. Kaposi; Budapest/HU
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2018/C-1265
Aims and objectives
The recently developed ultrasound elastography techniques are commonly designed to measure liver stiffness (LS),
which has been established as surrogate marker of liver fibrosis[1].
When a tissue is compressed by mechanical force it generates shear-waves.
The propagation speed of these shear-waves (SWS) is proportional to stiffness[2], and it can be used to calculate tissue elasticity.
These ultrasound based techniques,
such as point shear-wave elastography (pSWE) combine shear-wave imaging with conventional B-mode scans.
These rely on acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) technology to generate shear-waves around a focus point in an operator selected region of interest (ROI)[3]. pSWE applications can be installed on diagnostic ultrasound scanners,
which allows easy access and flexible examination protocols in a variety of clinical scenarios.
The S-ShearwaveTM elastography application (Samsung Medison,
Hongcheon,
Korea) has been recently available on Samsung ultrasound scanners.
The operating principle of S-Shearwave is similar to other ARFI based pSWE systems.
In the present study,
we aimed to validate the interobserver reliability and tested the diagnostic accuracy of the S-Shearwave elastography.