IMPLEMENTATION OF SHEAR WAVE ELASTOGRAPHY AS A NEWMETHOD IN THE CLINIC OF GASTROENTEROHEPATOLOGY – SKOPJE

Abstract

Despite the fact that liver biopsy is so far considered as “ a golden standard” when diagnosing diffuse liver diseases,recently it has been replaced by non-invasive methods, such as serum markers of liver fibrosis and elastography,due to smallest amount of complications risk, and the likelihood for larger liver surface analysis.Our study comprises 40 patients, with confirmed liver scarring, based on previous laboratory findings, clinicalfeatures, and abdominal ultrasound.Based on the etiology and the stage of scarring, patients have been divided into three groups: patients withsteatosis (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), patients with hepatitis, and patients with liver cirrhosis. Generally therehas been established a positive correlation between elastography values and corresponding liver disease, exceptfor small number of patients with more aggressive liver lesions than expected, resulting in higher elastographyvalues.