Turkish Journal of Gastroenterology
Liver - Original Article

Diagnosis of liver fibrosis in patients with hepatitis B–related liver disease using ultrasound with wave-number domain attenuation coefficient

1.

Department of Ultrasound, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, 230022, China

2.

Department of Infectious Disease, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, 230022, China

Turk J Gastroenterol 2020; 31: 923-929
DOI: 10.5152/tjg.2020.20139
Read: 1785 Downloads: 782 Published: 30 April 2020

Background/Aims: The importance of identifying the stage of liver fibrosis has motivated the development of non-invasive methods. This study aimed to evaluate the applicability of ultrasound analysis involving the wave-number domain attenuation coefficient (W-Ac) in the non-invasive quantitative differentiation of liver fibrosis.

Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study of inpatients with hepatitis B–related liver disease treated between October 2016 and January 2018. In ultrasound, the echo from the near-field liver tissue was selected as the reference signal. The W-Ac of liver tissues was based on the fast Fourier transform of the acquired post-beamforming radio frequency signals. These values were compared with fibrosis from biopsy METAVIR score results. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve tested the W-Ac method.

Results: A total of 46 patients were enrolled, including 27 males and 19 females. Fibrosis was stage F0 in 12 patients, F1 in 13 patients, F2 in 10 patients, F3 in 7 patients, and F4 in 4 patients. W-Ac increased with the progression of liver fibrosis up to stage F3. There were differences between F0 and F4 stages (p<0.001) and between any 2 stages of fibrosis (p<0.05), except for stages F3 and F4. There was a significant correlation between W-Ac and METAVIR score (r=0.795, p<0.001). W-Ac differed between non-fibrosis (F0) and fibrosis (F1–F4) groups (p<0.001) and in the normal (F0), early fibrosis (F1–2), and late fibrosis groups (F3–4) (p<0.001). ROC area under the curve was 0.890, and at a cut-off of 0.12153, sensitivity was 0.706 and specificity was 0.830.

Conclusions: W-Ac allowed assessment of liver fibrosis in clinical practice.

Cite this article as: He D, Zhang C, Qiu W, Xie Q. Diagnosis of liver fibrosis in patients with hepatitis B–related liver disease using ultrasound with wave-number domain attenuation coefficient. Turk J Gastroenterol 2020; 31(12): 923-9.

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