Clinical application of two dimensional shear wave elastography with a propagation map in evaluating liver fibrosis in patients with liver tumors

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of two-dimensional shear wave elastography (2D-SWE) with a propagation map in evaluating the degree of hepatic fibrosis in patients with liver tumors before resection. METHODS AND MATERIALS: From January 2020 to April 2021, 128 patients with liver tumors were prospectively enrolled, including 20 benign liver tumors and 108 malignant liver tumors. 2D-SWE with a propagation map technology was used to measure the stiffness of liver parenchyma 2 cm away from the tumor. The median value of five measurements was used in this study. The stage of hepatic fibrosis was graded in accordance with Scheuer standard. Spearman correlation was used to analyze the correlation between liver fibrosis stage and the liver stiffness. Univariate and multivariate linear regression analyses were used to determine significant affecting factors for liver stiffness value. The diagnostic performance of 2D-SWE with a propagation map in predicting fibrosis stage was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. RESULTS: The median liver stiffness value in patients with benign liver tumors was lower than that in patients with malignant liver tumors (6.0 kPa vs. 9.4 kPa, p < 0.05). The median liver stiffness values in patients with primary liver cancer were higher than that in patients with benign liver tumors and other types of malignant liver tumors (9.6 kPa vs. 6.0 kPa, p < 0.05). The liver stiffness measured by 2D-SWE was highly correlated with the fibrosis stage confirmed by postoperative pathology (r = 0.834, p < 0.05). For the liver stiffness value, PLT,TB,ALB and fibrosis stage are significantly associated with liver stiffness. The median liver stiffness values in stages S0–S4 of fibrosis were 6.0, 7.2, 8.0, 9.4, and 12.6 kPa, respectively. The areas under the ROC curve of S≥1, S≥2, S≥3, and S = 4 as predicted by SWE were 0.932, 0.945, 0.945, and 0.916, respectively. According to the Youden index, the optimal critical values for predicting fibrosis S≥1, S≥2, S≥3, and S = 4 were 6.8 (sensitivity of 89.69% and specificity of 93.55%), 7.5 (sensitivity of 87.50 % and specificity of 95.00 %), 8.3 (sensitivity of 87.14 % and specificity of 87.93 %) and 9.8 (sensitivity of 79.55 % and specificity of 86.90 %) kPa. CONCLUSION: 2D-SWE with a propagation map could noninvasively and accurately predict the staging of liver fibrosis in patients with liver tumors before resection.