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Updated: Jul 11, 2025
Application of Ultrasound and Shear Wave Elastography Imaging in a Rat Model of NAFLD/NASH
Published on: April 20, 2021
Prospective evaluation of liver shearwave elastography measurements with 3 different technologies and same day liver
Sebastiana M Atzori1, Yasmin Pasha2, James B Maurice3
1Liver Unit QEQM Wing St. Mary Hospital, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, South Wharf Road, London W1 1NY, United Kingdom; Department of Medicine, Sassari University Hospital, Via Enrico de Nicola, Sassari 07100, Italy.
Background:
Most ultrasound-based methods for assessing liver fibrosis still need further validation with liver biopsy used as gold standard to assess their accuracy.
Aims:
To assess accuracy of three shear wave elastography (SWE) methods: 1) Philips Elast Point Quantification (ElastPQTM), 2) Siemens Virtual TouchTM Quantification (VTQ) acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI), and 3) transient elastography (TE) measured by Echosens FibroscanTM.
Methods:
160 patients underwent liver stiffness measurements (LSM) with three SWE methods immediately prior to liver biopsy.
Results:
The number of LSM required for reliable studies could be reduced to 6 for ElastPQ and to 7 for VTQ from standard recommendations of 10. Significant fibrosis and interquartile range/median (IQR/M)> 30 were independent predictors for lower reliability for detection of liver fibrosis. Ordinal logistic regression corrected for age showed that there was a significant interaction between steatosis (p = 0.008) and lobular inflammation (p = 0.04) and VTQ (ARFI) and between lobular inflammation and TE (p = 0.006).
Conclusions:
We showed variations in SWE measurements using different ARFI technologies. TE and ElastPQ achieved good diagnostic performance, whereas VTQ showed lower diagnostic accuracy. The number of measurements required for reliable studies can be reduced to 6 for ElastPQ and to 7 for VTQ, which have important clinical implications.
