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Supersonic shear imaging accurate in staging liver fibrosis

Supersonic shear imaging accurately measured various stages of liver fibrosis, but was not correlated with steatosis or any other liver disease activity, according to study data.

“In this prospective study, we compared the results of [supersonic shear imaging] in 120 patients with chronic liver disease with [FibroScan] and several blood tests in an intention-to-diagnose analysis for the staging of fibrosis, and with [shear wave spectroscopy] and viscosity for the staging of disease activity and steatosis, using liver biopsy as the reference method,” researchers wrote.

All patients included in the study underwent liver biopsy for chronic liver disease at Cochin Hospital in Paris between February 2011 and November 2012. The median age of the patients was 46 years and 58% had viral hepatitis (n=70). FibroScan and supersonic shear imaging (SSI) were both used to measure liver stiffness. Fibrosis scores, disease activity and steatosis were measured based on the METAVIR scoring system, according to the research.

Ninety-eight percent of patients underwent successful SSI and was observed to be as consistent as FibroScan in staging fibrosis among the entire cohort and the subgroup of patients with viral hepatitis.

In the entire population, SSI had area under the curve (AUC) scores of 0.81 for fibrosis stage of at least 2, 0.8 for a fibrosis stage of at least 3 and 0.85 for fibrosis stage 4, whereas FibroScan had AUCs of 0.86 for fibrosis stage 2, 0.82 for fibrosis stage 3 and 0.85 for fibrosis stage 4. In the viral hepatitis subgroup, SSI had AUC scores of 0.85 for fibrosis stage of at least 2, 0.82 for a fibrosis stage of at least 3 and 0.9 for fibrosis stage 4, whereas FibroScan had AUCs of 0.89 for fibrosis stage 2; 0.83 for fibrosis stage 3; and 0.87 for fibrosis stage 4.

There were no significant differences between the receiver-operating characteristic curves for both groups of patients (P>.05 for all fibrosis stages), according to the research. All AUCs were higher for both SSI and FibroScan compared with all other blood tests.     

“Supersonic shear imaging gives a robust noninvasive assessment of liver fibrosis for patients with viral hepatitis and was found to have similar accuracy than [FibroScan] with a very high success rate of 98%, using [liver biopsy] as a reference,” the researchers concluded. “Viscosity was measured for the first time and was found to correlate with fibrosis, but not with steatosis.”

Disclosure: One researcher reports being a co-founder and shareholder of Supersonic Imagine. A second researcher reports being a consultant for Supersonic Imagine.