Evaluation of Liver Stiffness in Healthy Individuals by Sonoelastography
TC13-TC16
Correspondence
Dr. Ankur Malhotra,
Assistant Professor, Department of Radiology, Shri Mahant Indiresh Hospital, Patel Nagar,
Dehradun-248001, Uttarakhand, India.
E-mail: drankur.m7@gmail.com
Introduction: Successfully detecting and managing Liver Fibrosis (LF) at an early phase can significantly improve the prognosis of patients in clinical practice; therefore, accurately assessing the degree of fibrosis when the disease is at an early stage is extremely important. However, the normal range of Liver Stiffness (LS) on Point Shear Wave Elastography (PSWE) is not well established.
Aim: The present study aimed to quantitatively evaluate and compare sonoelastographic values of liver stiffness in healthy individuals without any clinical complaints.
Materials and Methods: A prospective cross-sectional study was done from November 2014 to January 2017 in a tertiary care hospital in Uttarakhand region. The mean kilopascal value of 10 consecutive measurements were used as representative value for each healthy individual. The effects of potential confounding factors (age, gender, hepatic steatosis, and BMI) on liver elasticity were evaluated. Results were evaluated using SPSS© for windows™ Vs 23 (IBM™ Corp NY) and Microsoft excel™ 2007(Microsoft® Inc USA). Student’s t-test was used to check the significance of difference between two parameters. ANOVA followed by Tukey’s HSD test was used to test the significance of difference between more than two parameters in parametric data.
Results: A total of 207 healthy individuals out of which 59 had fatty liver (incidentally detected) formed a part of this study. Reference range of liver stiffness in total study population was 4.48±0.78 kPa. Liver stiffness in males was 4.56±0.76 kPa and in females was 4.32±0.80 kPa. Reference range of liver stiffness for fatty liver was 4.59±0.84 kPa and for healthy liver was 4.47±0.75.
Conclusion: Normal reference range of liver stiffness in healthy individuals in Uttarakhand region was 4.48±0.78 kPa. Of all the confounding factors only males have significant higher liver elasticity as compared to females. Other confounding factors have no significant effect on liver elasticity.