Primary study of real-time tissue elastography in quantitative diagnosis of liver fibrosis

Objective To investigate the value of real-time tissue elastography (RTE)in diagnosis of liver fibrosis. Methods One hundred and twenty normal control subjects, 120 patients with liver fibrosis and 120 patients with liver cirrhosis were enrolled in this study. Their livers were examined by conventional ultrasound and RTE, the elastic indexes of liver elastic images were recorded, including mean of relative strain value(Mean),standard deviation of relative strain value(SD),area ratio of low strain region(%Area)and complexity of low strain region(Comp). Both of conventional ultrasound results and RTE results were compared with those of pathology, then the elastic indexes of three groups were compared. Results The sensitivity and accuracy rate of conventional ultrasound in diagnosis of liver fibrosis were 53.3% and 76.7%, the sensitivity and accuracy rate of RTE in diagnosis of liver fibrosis were 90.0% and 86.7%. The sensitivity and accuracy rate of elastic scores were higher than those of conventional ultrasound(P0.05), the coefficient correlation between the elasticity scores and the stages of liver fibrosis was 0.893(P=0.000).The Mean of the control group, liver fibrosis group and liver cirrhosis group in turn decreased, and SD, % Area and Comp in turn increased, there were significant differences between three groups(P0.01). Conclusion RTE is a noninvasive and promising sonography-based new method in assessment of liver fibrosis.