The Efficacy of Acoustic Radiation Force Impulse Elastography for Predicting Clinical Outcomes in Living Donor Liver Transplant

Abstract

Acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) elastography is widely used for evaluating liver fibrosis. Here we evaluated the efficacy of ARFI elastography for estimating graft quality and clinical outcomes in living donor liver transplant (LDLT). We retrospectively evaluated the cases of 87 LDLT donors who preoperatively underwent ARFI elastography at Nagasaki University Hospital between August 2010 and June 2016. We analyzed whether the velocity of shear wave (Vs) obtained by ARFI elastography affected the regeneration rate of each donor's remnant liver and the 1-year survival rate of the recipients. There were no significant correlations between Vs value and the donors' age. Only 1 donor (1.1%) showed significant fibrosis, F2(portal fibrosis with few septa) in zero-biopsy. The 7 donors (8.0%), including 1 case, showed a high Vs value (>1.33) that was equal to F2, although there was no abnormal pathologic finding except in 1 case. In those cases, the regeneration rate of the remnant liver after hepatectomy was significantly lower compared to other cases. The 1-year survival rate of the recipients paired with the high-Vs donors was also significantly poorer than that of the other cases (high-Vs: 57.1%, others: 84.2%, P=.04). ARFI elastography might be an effective examination for the preoperative evaluation of the graft quality in LDLT.