Role of shear wave elastography in characterization of hepatic focal lesions

Dena M Serag,Eman A Ebeid,Basma A Dessouky,Hazem Omar

doi:10.1186/s43055-020-00178-2

Dena M Serag, Eman A Ebeid + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s43055-020-00178-2

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Abstract

BackgroundElastography is a recently developed diagnostic method that aims to evaluate tissue stiffness. Its utility is based on the fact that pathological tissues are generally stiffer than surrounding healthy tissues which often show up as a hard lesion. Shear wave elastography (SWE) is a new technique based on shear waves that has been implemented in diagnostic ultrasound (US) systems. The aim of this study is to study the role of shear wave elastography in differentiation between benign and malignant hepatic focal lesions.ResultsThe study was conducted on 110 patients (92 males, 18 females) with a mean age of 51.7 years. Age range was from 30 to 70 years; 28 patients were diagnosed with benign lesions, and 82 with malignant lesions. SWE shows that there is a significant difference in stiffness between malignant and benign lesions with p value = 0.002 and with mean ± SD of 10.3 ± 6.31 kPa for the benign lesions and 16.2 ± 9.32 kPa for the malignant group. A cutoff value of 13.24 was selected to differentiate between benign and malignant lesions using the SWE mean providing sensitivity 78.04%, specificity 71.42%, and accuracy 64.2%.ConclusionSWE is a good tool in the differentiation of benign and malignant hepatic focal lesions.

Highlights

Elastography is a recently developed diagnostic method that aims to evaluate tissue stiffness
The patients’ age ranged from 30 to 70 years with a mean age of 50.2 years for the benign lesions and 54.2 years for the malignant; Table 1 shows that the malignant lesions presented more among the male patients aged 50 to 60 years representing 25.5%
Clinical analysis of the clinical presentation of the studied patients revealed that 45 patients (40.9%) were presented by abdominal distention and 40 patients (36.4%) were presented by abdominal pain followed by loss of appetite (13.6%), loss of weight (11.8%), and jaundice (10%) (Table 2; Fig. 1)

Summary

Introduction

Elastography is a recently developed diagnostic method that aims to evaluate tissue stiffness. Its utility is based on the fact that pathological tissues are generally stiffer than surrounding healthy tissues which often show up as a hard lesion. Shear wave elastography (SWE) is a new technique based on shear waves that has been implemented in diagnostic ultrasound (US) systems. The aim of this study is to study the role of shear wave elastography in differentiation between benign and malignant hepatic focal lesions. Several distinct types of tumors can develop in the liver because the liver is made up of various cell types. These growths can be benign or malignant.

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