This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Doppler microvascular imaging predicts extent of liver fibrosis

Superb microvascular imaging technology showed potential to predict the extent of liver fibrosis by detecting the small vessels present in the vicinity of the liver surface, according to a recent study.

“Recently a new Doppler technology, superb microvascular imaging (SMI, Toshiba), which provides outstanding depiction of flow in very small vessels and at lower velocities without motion artifacts, was developed,” the researchers wrote. “Superb microvascular imaging analyzes tissue motion (clutter) and uses a new adaptive algorithm to identify and remove the tissue motion and reveal true blood flow.”

Between November 2012 and April 2014, the researchers enrolled 17 patients with biopsy-confirmed chronic hepatitis C and 12 patients with cirrhotic hepatitis C. They also enrolled 36 control patients without liver disease. Six patients had stage 1 fibrosis, six patients had stage 2 and five patients had stage 3.

Patients with stage 3 fibrosis had a mean vascular score of 3.5 vs. a score of 1.3 in patients with stage 1 or 2 and a score of 0.6 in the control patients (P < .01). Patients with stage 3 also had a higher mean bifurcation angle of 90.5 vs. 68 in the patients with stage 1 or 2 and 66.2 in the control patients (P < .01).

Compared with patients with stage 1 or 2, those with stage 3 were significantly older (70 vs. 54 years; P < .01), had lower levels of albumin (3.4 vs. 4.1 g/dL; P < .01), lower prothrombin times (74% vs. 92.3%; P < .01), lower platelet counts (9.7 vs. 16.8 × 10²/L; P < .01), greater vascular scores (3.5 vs. 1.3; P < .01) and greater bifurcation angles (90.5 vs. 68; P < .01).

“The recent high prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease gives impetus to the need for non-invasive, inexpensive, and reliable tools to evaluate liver fibrosis,” the researchers concluded. “Although further well-designed studies are needed to overcome the limitations in this study, the present results indicate that SMI potentially predicts the extent of liver fibrosis by detecting small vessels present in the vicinity of the liver surface without the use of a contrast medium.” – by Talitha Bennett

Disclosure s : The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.