Ultrasound elastography: liver

Abstract

Ultrasound elastography, also termed sonoelastography, is being used increasingly in clinical practice to aid the diagnosis and management of diffuse liver disease. Elastography has been shown to be capable of differentiating advanced and early-stage liver fibrosis, and consequently a major application in clinical liver care includes progression to cirrhosis risk stratification through (1) assessment of liver fibrosis stage in HCV and HBV patients, (2) distinguishing non-alcoholic steatohepatitis from simple steatosis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease patients, and (3) prognostic evaluation of liver disease is autoimmune liver disease. In addition, elastographic characterization of focal liver lesions and evaluation of clinically significant portal hypertension have the potential to be clinically useful and are areas of active clinical research.

Amyloidosis of the liver on shear wave elastography: case report and review of literature

“…The median SWE value was 99.1 kPa (range 25.7-188.9 kPa). These values were far higher than those typically seen in liver disease, where the optimal cutoff for cirrhosis ranges from 10.4 to 11.5 kPa in different series [20,26,27].…”

“…Cutoff values for cirrhosis diagnosis on SWE have been reported to be 10.4-11.5 kPa [20,26,27]. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case report of increased liver stiffness on shear-wave elastography in hepatic amyloidosis.…”

“…Ultrasound elastography has been shown to correlate with liver fibrosis stage in patients with diffuse liver disease [20,21,40,41], and increasingly is being used for this purpose, although confounding factors, such as extrahepatic cholestasis [42], acute inflammation [43,44], or autoimmune hepatitis [45] may cause increased hepatic stiffness.…”

“…Sonoelastography (SE) is a new imaging technique that measures the mechanical properties of tissue [14], and has seen early adoption as a non-invasive substitute for liver fibrosis staging [15][16][17][18][19][20][21], characterization of thyroid nodules [22][23][24], and localization of prostate cancer [24,25]. In this case report, we review a case of amyloidosis of the liver with findings seen on ultrasound shear wave elastography and also review the literature on the topic.…”

2D shear-wave ultrasound elastography (SWE) evaluation of ablation zone following radiofrequency ablation of liver lesions: is it more accurate?

“…It has been used to differentiate malignant nodules from benign ones in various organs, based on the fact that malignant nodules are always stiffer than benign ones. [9][10][11] Moreover, ultrasound elastography is a convenient and cost-effective examination method in comparison with CEMRI/CECT and CEUS, since no contrast administration is needed. The stiffness of the ablation zone in the liver increases obviously and is harder than that of the peripheral liver tissue after ablation.…”