Abstract
BackgroundNonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is rapidly becoming one of the most common liver diseases. Ultrasound elastography has been used for the diagnosis of NAFLD. However, clinical research on steatosis by elastography technology has mainly focused on steatosis with fibrosis or non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), while steatosis without fibrosis has been poorly studied. Moreover, the relationship between liver viscoelasticity and steatosis grade is not clear. In this study, we evaluated the degree of liver steatosis in a simple steatosis rat model using shear wave elastography (SWE).ResultsThe viscoelasticity values of 69 rats with hepatic steatosis were measured quantitatively by SWE in vivo and validated by a dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) test. Pathological sections were used to determine the steatosis grade for each rat. The results showed that the elasticity values µ obtained by the two methods followed the same trend, and µ is significantly correlated with liver steatosis. The Pearson’s correlation coefficients indicate that mu obtained by SWE is positively linear correlated with DMA (r = 0.628, p = 7.85 × 10–9). However, the viscosity values eta obtained by SWE were relatively independent of those obtained by DMA with a correlation coefficient of − 0.01. The combined Voigt elasticity measurements have high validity in the prediction of steatosis (S0 vs. S1–S4), with an AUROC of 0.755 (95% CI 0.6175–0.8925, p < 0.01) and the optimal cutoff value was 2.08 kPa with a sensitivity of 78% and specificity of 63%.ConclusionSWE might have the feasibility to be introduced as an auxiliary technique for NAFLD patients in clinical settings. However, the viscosity results measured by SWE and DMA are significantly different, because the two methods work in different frequency bands.
Highlights
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is rapidly becoming one of the most common liver diseases
Grimal et al [30] investigated the relationship between liver tissue stiffness and histological inflammation score, hepatic fibrosis stage, ballooning score, steatosis analyzed by shear wave elastography (SWE) in rats with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and found that median liver stiffness values measured using SWE showed a stepwise increase with increasing steatosis grade (p = 0.03), the results were consistent with those of [31] that demonstrated that liver elasticity was effective in detecting NAFLD
In this study, we compared the measurement of viscoelastic parameters, including elasticity and viscosity, by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) tests, SWE methods and combined Voigt model analysis in a rat model of NAFLD at five steatosis stages
Summary
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is rapidly becoming one of the most common liver diseases. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a main cause of chronic liver disease (CLD) and is rapidly becoming one of the most common liver diseases, with an approximate prevalence of 20–30% of the total population in Western countries [1, 2]. It represents a spectrum of diseases ranging from simple steatosis to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), which has a close relationship with liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma [3,4,5]. As the procedure is noninvasive, it can supersede biopsy-related postoperative complications and potential diagnosis error due to a small sampling range [14]
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