Principles and clinical application of ultrasound elastography for diffuse liver disease
Open Access
- 24 March 2014
- journal article
- Published by Korean Society of Ultrasound in Medicine in Ultrasonography
- Vol. 33 (3), 149-160
- https://doi.org/10.14366/usg.14003
Abstract
Accurate assessment of the degree of liver fibrosis is important for estimating prognosis and deciding on an appropriate course of treatment for cases of chronic liver disease (CLD) with various etiologies. Because of the inherent limitations of liver biopsy, there is a great need for non-invasive and reliable tests that accurately estimate the degree of liver fibrosis. Ultrasound (US) elastography is considered a non-invasive, convenient, and precise technique to grade the degree of liver fibrosis by measuring liver stiffness. There are several commercial types of US elastography currently in use, namely, transient elastography, acoustic radiation force impulse imaging, supersonic shear-wave imaging, and real-time tissue elastography. Although the low reproducibility of measurements derived from operator-dependent performance remains a significant limitation of US elastography, this technique is nevertheless useful for diagnosing hepatic fibrosis in patients with CLD. Likewise, US elastography may also be used as a convenient surveillance method that can be performed by physicians at the patients' bedside to enable the estimation of the prognosis of patients with fatal complications related to CLD in a non-invasive manner.Keywords
This publication has 57 references indexed in Scilit:
- Staging of Hepatic Fibrosis: Comparison of Magnetic Resonance Elastography and Shear Wave Elastography in the Same IndividualsKorean Journal of Radiology, 2013
- Review article: the diagnosis of non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease – availability and accuracy of non‐invasive methodsAlimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 2012
- Performance of Transient Elastography for the Staging of Liver Fibrosis in Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B: A Meta-AnalysisPLOS ONE, 2012
- Can transient elastography be used for the management of chronic hepatitis B patients?Liver International, 2012
- Ultrasound-based transient elastography for the detection of hepatic fibrosis in patients with recurrent hepatitis C virus after liver transplantation: A systematic review and meta-analysisLiver Transplantation, 2012
- Magnetic resonance elastography: A reviewClinical Anatomy, 2010
- Extrahepatic cholestasis increases liver stiffness (FibroScan) irrespective of fibrosisHepatology, 2008
- Mechanisms of Hepatic FibrogenesisGastroenterology, 2008
- Reproducibility of transient elastography in the evaluation of liver fibrosis in patients with chronic liver diseaseGut, 2007
- Sampling variability of liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis CHepatology, 2003