Evaluation of Liver Fibrosis Using Shear Wave Elastography: An Overview

Abstract

All kinds of chronic liver disease can progress into liver fibrosis, and the stage of liver fibrosis is an important prognostic factor. Therefore, assessment of liver fibrosis is of importance for the management of the chronic liver disease. Although liver biopsy is considered the standard method, its invasive nature limits clinical use. In this regard, shear wave-based ultrasound elastography has been emerged as a noninvasive method to evaluate liver fibrosis. Among various techniques, transient elastography (TE) has been the most extensively used and validated method. TE provides good diagnostic performance in staging liver fibrosis. In addition to TE, point shear wave elastography (pSWE) and two-dimensional SWE (2D-SWE) have been developed as another noninvasive method, and also reported good diagnostic performance in staging liver fibrosis. Although TE, pSWE, and 2D-SWE show good performance in assessing liver fibrosis, concurrent inflammatory activity and/or hepatic congestion are important limitations in the current elastography technique.