A Newly Developed Shear Wave Elastography Modality: With a Unique Reliability Index

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to prospectively assess the usefulness of the reliability index, namely the percentage of the net amount of effective shear wave velocity (VsN). Methods: One hundred and sixty-eight patients with chronic liver disease, who underwent ultrasound elastography, were consecutively enrolled. Shear wave measurement (SWM), FibroScan, virtual touch quantification, and shear wave elastography were performed for all patients, and the variations in the measurement results were compared with VsN. The absolute average value of the difference between SWM_Vs and Vs measured using other elastography devices is termed |ΔVs|. VsN was classified into three groups: ≥50, <50, and 0 (failure measurement). In these groups, there was a significant difference in abdominal circumference, body mass index, the distance between the ultrasound probe surface and the liver, and |ΔVs|. When the distance between the ultrasound probe surface and the liver was >2 cm, VsN tended to be significantly lower (p < 0.001). Results: When VsN was <50, |ΔVs| became high, and there was variation in the results between each device. Conclusions: The results of this study show that VsN is a useful value to decide whether Vs is appropriate or not.

Influence of Liver Inflammation on Liver Stiffness Measurement in Patients with Autoimmune Hepatitis Evaluation by Combinational Elastography

“…In recent years, ultrasound elastography has been attracting attention as a noninvasive diagnostic tool for liver fibrosis [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] . Evaluation of liver fibrosis is important in the prediction of hepatocellular carcinoma incidence risk and prognosis [8][9][10] .…”

Does motion affect liver stiffness estimates in shear wave elastography? Phantom and clinical study

“…Hence, SWE is now considered a useful tool for staging liver fibrosis noninvasively. Most liver-stiffness measurements reported in the literature were obtained using a breath-hold technique to minimize potential artifacts and uncertainties due to breathing movements during the measurement of the shear-wave velocity [5][6][7]. That context was totally justified in early elastography studies based on strain imaging, because accurate estimation of the displacement field induced by the compressive force required the absence of any respiratory movement between the pre-and post-compressive states.…”

Prospective Risk Analysis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C by Ultrasound Strain Elastography

“…As liver fibrosis progresses, the blue area increases and the image texture becomes increasingly distorted. The multiple regression equation for diagnosis of hepatic fibrosis uses feature values from RTE images to calculate the LFI, and is widely used to analyze RTE color map patterns objectively [13,14,15,16,22]. …”