Point Shear Wave Elastography by ElastPQ for Fibrosis Screening in Patients with NAFLD: A Prospective, Multicenter...

Since nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the leading cause of liver disease in the Western world, clinicians need reliable noninvasive tools for the identification of NAFLD-associated fibrosis. Limited evidence on the performance of the novel shear wave elastography technique Elast-PQ (EPQ) in NAFLD is available.

In this prospective, European multinational study we assessed the diagnostic accuracy of EPQ using vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE) as a reference standard.

Among 353 NAFLD patients, 332 (94.1%) fulfilled reliability criteria of VCTE and EPQ (defined by IQR/median ≤0.3; 41.3% female, mean age: 59 [IQR: 16.5], mean BMI: 29.0 (7.1)). 4/353 (1.1%) and 17/353 (4.8%) had unreliable VCTE and EPQ measurements, respectively. VCTE-based NAFLD fibrosis stages were F0/F1: 222(66.9%), F2: 41 (12.3%), F3: 30 (9.1%), F4: 39 (11.7%). We found a strong correlation (Pearson R=0.87; p<0.0001) and concordance (Lin's concordance correlation coefficient =0.792) of EPQ with VCTE. EPQ was able to identify NAFLD-fibrosis risk with the following EPQ cutoffs: ≥6.5 kPa for significant fibrosis (≥F2) (≥1.47 m/s; sensitivity: 78%; specificity: 95%; AUROC: 0.94), ≥6.9 kPa for advanced fibrosis (≥F3) (≥1.52 m/s; sens.: 88%, spec.: 89%; AUROC: 0.949), and ≥10.4 kPa for cirrhosis (F4) (≥1.86 m/s; sens.: 87%; spec.: 94%; AUROC: 0.949).

The point shear wave elastography technique EPQ shows excellent correlation to and concordance with VCTE. EPQ can reliably exclude NAFLD fibrosis <6.0 kPa (<1.41 m/s) and indicate a high risk of advanced fibrosis ≥10.4 kPa (≥1.86 m/s).