Industry Symposium by Canon Medical

IND 5 - Ultrasound Liver Analysis: What’s New

The prevalence of diffuse liver disease is increasing and is now a worldwide problem. In addition to alcohol abuse or chronic hepatitis, other causes are emerging such as metabolic syndrome leading to a higher prevalence of fatty liver or liver–related diseases. The wide variety of these causes and their impact on the liver require the combination of conventional ultrasound with new advanced diagnostic techniques to provide adequate staging of the patient.

This symposium will review the use and diagnostic performance of these techniques such as elastography for the quantification of liver stiffness, fibrosis using Shear Wave technology (SWE), the new tissue attenuation parameter (ATI) for the quantification of steatosis or the inflammatory dispersion of liver tissue (SWD).

5 min

Introduction

20 min

Liver Shear Wave Elastography: SRU Consensus/Attenuation Imaging: Toward Standardization of Measurements

Giovanna Ferraioli, Pavia / Italy

Learning Objectives

SRU consensus underscores that a correct protocol for liver stiffness measurement with the acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI)-based techniques must be followed, taking into consideration several confounding factors. It has also highlighted that the overlap of liver stiffness values between histologic stages of liver fibrosis is as large if not larger than the difference between vendor’s techniques. Therefore, a vendor-independent “rule of 4” is suggested.

A standardization of the measurement of liver fat content with attenuation imaging is needed because there are several factors that may affect the readings.

20 min

Are We Ready for Global Ultrasound Analysis for Chronic Liver Diseases?

Marco Dioguardi Burgio, Clichy / France

Learning Objectives

Evaluation of liver inflammation is a key element in the assessment of patients with chronic liver disease. Indeed, its presence may favor the development of liver fibrosis.

Currently, there are no validated non-invasive methods to estimate hepatic inflammation.

The dispersion properties of shear waves can be used as method for measuring the viscosity in the liver, which is considered to be linked to inflammation.

Some recent data suggest that a US approach evaluating the dispersion slope, calculated from 2D-SWE, can be used as a non-invasive biomarker of hepatic inflammation.

This session will discuss the basic principles of the dispersion slope assessment, the actual applications as well as the possible future directions.

15 min

Summary and perspective