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Updated: Feb 25, 2026
Application of Ultrasound and Shear Wave Elastography Imaging in a Rat Model of NAFLD/NASH
Published on: April 20, 2021
Non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis using two-dimensional shear wave elastography in patients with autoimmune
Jie Zeng1, Ze-Ping Huang1, Jian Zheng1
1Jie Zeng, Ze-Ping Huang, Tao Wu, Rong-Qin Zheng, Department of Medical Ultrasonics, Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Liver Disease Research, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510630, Guangdong Province, China.
Aim:
To determine the diagnostic accuracy of two-dimensional shear wave elastography (2D-SWE) for the non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis in patients with autoimmune liver diseases (AILD) using liver biopsy as the reference standard.
Methods:
Patients with AILD who underwent liver biopsy and 2D-SWE were consecutively enrolled. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were constructed to assess the overall accuracy and to identify optimal cut-off values.
Results:
The characteristics of the diagnostic performance were determined for 114 patients with AILD. The areas under the ROC curves for significant fibrosis, severe fibrosis, and cirrhosis were 0.85, 0.85, and 0.86, respectively, and the optimal cut-off values associated with significant fibrosis (≥ F2), severe fibrosis (≥ F3), and cirrhosis (F4) were 9.7 kPa, 13.2 kPa and 16.3 kPa, respectively. 2D-SWE showed sensitivity values of 81.7% for significant fibrosis, 83.0% for severe fibrosis, and 87.0% for cirrhosis, and the respective specificity values were 81.3%, 74.6%, and 80.2%. The overall concordance rate of the liver stiffness measurements obtained using 2D-SWE vs fibrosis stages was 53.5%.
Conclusion:
2D-SWE showed promising diagnostic performance for assessing liver fibrosis stages and exhibited high cut-off values in patients with AILD. Low overall concordance rate was observed in the liver stiffness measurements obtained using 2D-SWE vs fibrosis stages.
