The usefulness of 3 different points of the liver to evaluate fibrosis by transitional elastography

Introduction and objective

The degree of liver fibrosis is diagnosed, among other studies, with transition elastography; it is known that liver injury is heterogeneous, so underdiagnosing the degree of fibrosis when performing the survey at a single point may be possibly described in a standard way. This study aimed to evaluate the sensitivity of transition elastography at three different points to determine its performance.

Materials and Methods

Patients with liver disease were included; transition elastography was performed at three different points, point A at the site indicated by the manufacturers; point B, an intercostal space downwards; and point C, an intercostal space upwards; descriptive and inferential statistics were performed.

Results

One hundred nine patients were evaluated, 64 men (59%) and 45 women (41%) average age of 52.6. Paired t-tests were run between the three different combinations (K1 vs. K2, K1 vs. K3, and K2 vs. K3). For all these tests, the value of p>0.05, no statistically significant differences were found between the measurements. Correlation tests were performed between the same combinations, finding a value of p<0.05 for the three, which means that the observations are correlated. ROC curves were constructed. It can be seen that in all 6 cases, the ROC curve is close to the ideal values. Figures 1 and 2.

Conclusions

For the diagnosis of fibrosis, there is no difference between the three points in the same organ, even though the liver injury is heterogeneous.

Funding

The resources used in this study were from the hospital without any additional financing

Declaration of interest

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest.