Does Supersonic Shear Wave Elastography Help Differentiate Biliary Atresia from Other Causes of Cholestatic Hepatitis in Infants Less than 90 Days Old? Compared with Grey-Scale US.

PURPOSE

To investigate the diagnostic performance of shear wave elastography (SWE) for measuring liver stiffness to identify and differentiate biliary atresia (BA) from cholestatic hepatitis in infants younger than 90 days.

METHODS

A total of 138 infants younger than 90 days with cholestatic hepatitis were examined by SWE. The infants were subclassified into BA and nonbiliary atresia (non-BA) groups. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to determine the sensitivity and specificity of hepatic Young's modulus measurements, the ultrasonic findings in the differential diagnosis of suspected BA, and the cut-off value to diagnose BA.

RESULTS

In all infants with cholestatic hepatitis, the cut-off value of hepatic Young's modulus to differentiate the BA group from the non-BA group was 12.35 kPa and the area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.937, with a sensitivity of 84.3% and a specificity of 89.7%; nevertheless the AUC of the abnormal gallbladder (AbGB) was 0.940, with a sensitivity of 96.1% and a specificity of 92.0%. In the parallel test, triangular cord (TC) sign combined with AbGB had the best diagnostic performance and the AUC was 0.960, with a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 92.0%. In the serial test, SWE combined with AbGB achieved the best diagnostic performance; the AUC was 0.902, the sensitivity and specificity were 80.4% and 100%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

SWE could not only help differentiate BA from cholestatic hepatic diseases but also increase the diagnostic specificity when combined with grey-scale ultrasound in the serial test.