Patient characteristics:
There were 100 patients giving a total of 400 examinations.
We excluded 7 failed or unreliable examinations,
393 examinations were included for analysis.
Patient characteristics are shown in Table 1.
The mean age of the study population was 57.1 ± 10.2 years and 46.0% were male.
The mean BMI of the study population was 30.8 ± 4.8 kg per m² and the mean waist circumference was 100.6 ± 11.4 cm.
The prevalence of obesity and central obesity was 92.0% and 97.0%,
respectively.
The distribution of fibrosis was as follows: F0,
17.0%; F1,
42.0%; F2,
8.0%; F3,
29.0%; F4,
4.0%.
Liver stiffness measurement according to fibrosis stages:
The median (IQR) liver stiffness measurement using TE for fibrosis stages F0,
F1,
F2,
F3 and F4 was 6.00 (5.3-7.5) kPa,
9.1 (7.1-11.4) kPa,
9.9 (8.0-15.9) kPa,
12.8 (10.3-17.1) kPa and 18.5 (14.5-22.3) kPa respectively.
The median (IQR) liver stiffness measurement using pSWE for fibrosis stages F0,
F1,
F2,
F3 and F4 was 5.5 (3.9-6.8) kPa,
7.0 (5.6-8.7) kPa,
7.8 (6.6-10.7) kPa,
8.2 (6.6-10.4) kPa and 11.8 (7.7-17.4) kPa respectively (Figure 4 and Figure 5).
Accuracy of TE and pSWE for the diagnosis of the different fibrosis stages:
The area under receiver operator curves (AUROC) for TE and pSWE in fibrosis stages ≥F1,
≥F2,
≥F3 and F4 are shown in Figure 5.
TE was good for the diagnosis of fibrosis stages ≥F1,
≥F2,
≥F3 and F4 while pSWE was fair for the diagnosis of fibrosis stages ≥F1 and F4 and poor for the diagnosis stages ≥F2 and ≥F3.
Intra-observer and inter-observer agreement for TE and pSWE:
Table 2 lists the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) for intra-observer and inter-observer agreements for TE and pSWE.
There was excellent correlation in repeated measurements by the same operator as well as different operators for TE and pSWE.