Abstract
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is expected to increase in prevalence because of the ongoing epidemics of obesity and diabetes, and it has become a major cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. Liver fibrosis is associated with long-term outcomes in patients with NAFLD. Liver biopsy is recommended as the gold standard method for the staging of liver fibrosis. However, it has several problems. Therefore, simple and noninvasive methods for the diagnosis and staging of liver fibrosis are urgently needed in place of biopsy. This review discusses recent studies of elastography techniques (vibration-controlled transient elastography, point shear wave elastography, two-dimensional shear wave elastography, and magnetic resonance elastography) that can be used for the assessment of liver fibrosis in patients with NAFLD.
Highlights
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become a major cause of chronic liver disease worldwide
In 2017, Xiao et al [29] conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 64 articles involving 13,046 patients with NAFLD to compare the diagnostic performance of noninvasive indexes (aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index, fibrosis-4 index, BARD score, NAFLD fibrosis score, vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE) (M- and XL-probe), SWE, and Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) for the prediction of significant fibrosis, advanced fibrosis, and cirrhosis
Other studies have demonstrated that MRE is superior to VCTE and noninvasive indexes for the diagnosis of liver fibrosis in patients with NAFLD [51,71,72,73]
Summary
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become a major cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. Liver biopsy is conventionally recommended as the gold standard method for the diagnosis of NAFLD and the staging of liver fibrosis [10]. It has several problems, such as sampling error, inter- and intra-observer variation, a risk of complications, and high cost [11,12]. Conventional ultrasonography (US), computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are useful for the diagnosis of chronic liver disease and cirrhosis and the detection of hepatocellular carcinoma. These imaging methods cannot accurately differentiate the various stages of liver fibrosis.
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