Performance of two-dimensional shear wave elastography for detecting advanced liver fibrosis and cirrhosis in patients with biliary atresia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Abstract

Two-dimensional shear wave elastography (2D-SWE) has been proposed for detecting liver fibrosis in biliaryatresia. To assess the performance of 2D-SWE for detecting advanced liver fibrosis and cirrhosis in patients with biliaryatresia. Five electronic databases were searched to identify studies investigating the performance of 2D-SWE fordiagnosing liver fibrosis in biliary atresia in children. We constructed the summary receiver operating characteristic(SROC) curves of 2D-SWE for detecting advanced liver fibrosis and cirrhosis, and then calculated the area underthe SROC curves (AUROCs). Six studies with 470 patients (ages 55 days to 6.6 years) were included. The median correlation coefficient of 2D-SWEwith pathological liver fibrosis stages was 0.779 (range: 0.443‒0.813). The summary AUROCs for advancedliver fibrosis and cirrhosis were 0.929 and 0.883, respectively. The summary sensitivity and specificity of 2D-SWEfor advanced liver fibrosis were 88% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 80‒94%) and 85% (95% CI: 77‒91%) with I values of 0% and 45.6%, respectively, and for cirrhosis were 80% (95% CI: 72‒87%) and 82% (95% CI: 77‒86%)with I values of 12.9% and 0%, respectively. The diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of 2D-SWE for advanced liverfibrosis and cirrhosis were 40.3 (95% CI: 18.2‒89.4) and 18.9 (95% CI: 11.2‒31.7), respectively. For preoperativedetection of cirrhosis, the pooled AUROC, sensitivity, specificity, and DOR based on the four 2D-SWE studies were 0.877, 79% (95% CI: 71‒86%), 82% (95% CI: 77‒86%), and 17.58 (95% CI: 10.35‒29.85), respectively. Results show that 2D-SWE has potential as a non-invasive tool for detecting advanced liver fibrosis and cirrhosis in patients withbiliary atresia.