Real-time elastography (Supersonic), experience of a medical center in bogotá

Abstract

Introduction: Real-time two-dimensional shear wave elastography (2D-SWE) (Supersonic Imagine SA), is a non-invasive test used to determine liver elasticity and calculate the degree of liver fibrosis. In Colombia, this test was introduced in 2016 and, to date, no study has tested its behavior in all liver patients, only in healthy and cirrhotic patients. Objective: To analyze the experience of real-time elastography implementation in subjects treated at the Centro de Enfermedades Hepáticas y Digestivas in Bogotá, Colombia. Materials and methods: This is a retrospective descriptive study of a cohort of subjects treated between March 2016 and July 2017. A complete medical report and a real-time elastography (Supersonic) test were performed. Results: 654 subjects were included, with a median age of 55 years (interquartile range [IQR]: 45-64). The median fibrosis values expressed in kilopascals (kPs) were 8.3, with an average of 5 measurements. There was a significant difference in the degree of fibrosis between the age groups and in relation to the final diagno-sis, where there was a greater fibrosis in the cholestatic disease group (autoimmune, primary biliary cholan-gitis [PBC], and overlap). The overall failure rate was less than 1 %. Conclusions: This is the first description of this test behavior in the country. Hepatic stiffness values observed in the different stages demonstrate the usefulness of the test to establish the degree of liver fibrosis in patients with multiple diseases.