A New Two-Dimensional Shear Wave Elastography for Noninvasive Assessment of Liver Fibrosis in Healthy Subjects and in Patients with Chronic Liver Disease

Purpose  To assess the performance of two-dimensional shear wave elastography (2D-SWE) on the GE LOGIQ E9 ultrasound system in a cohort of healthy subjects and to investigate its accuracy in the staging of liver fibrosis in patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) using liver biopsy as a reference standard. Materials and Methods  From October 2014 to June 2016, 54 healthy subjects and 174 patients with CLD were consecutively enrolled. Liver fibrosis stage was assessed by the METAVIR scoring system. 18 (10.3 %) and 17 (9.8 %) patients had advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis, respectively. The correlation of liver stiffness measurement (LSM) and continuous variable was assessed using the Spearman rank correlation. The accuracy of 2D-SWE was evaluated with areas under the receiver operating characteristics curves (AUROC). Results  Reliable LSMs were obtained in all subjects. The interobserver agreement ICC was excellent: 0.847. In healthy subjects, gender, but not anthropometric and biochemical data, were correlated with LSM. In patients with CLD, LSM had a strong positive correlation with fibrosis stage (rho = 0.628; p > 0.001). The AUROC was 0.724 for mild fibrosis (F≥ 1), 0.857 for moderate fibrosis (F≥ 2), 0.946 for severe fibrosis (F≥ 3), and 0.935 for cirrhosis (F4). Likewise, good accuracy was observed in the HCV subgroup. The optimal cut-off value in differentiating healthy subjects from CLD patients with any fibrosis was 5.47 kPa with an AUROC of 0.875. Conclusion  2D-SWE is a reliable and reproducible method to assess LSM with good diagnostic accuracy to assess liver fibrosis in patients with CLD.